This is a guest post by Katherine Miller.
Overview
The first few lessons of the year are very important for many reasons. These lessons are an opportunity for a fresh start to teach classroom expectations and routines that students will need throughout the year. Lessons at the beginning of the year are also a great chance to review what students have learned in previous years to get an accurate idea of what students have retained and where your planning should go in future lessons to continue their learning. Lastly, the start of the year is also a great time to show students how much fun it is to be a creator of music!
As I welcome students into my room for a new school year, I like to use a mix of engaging ways for students to do all of these things. Here are some classroom tested lessons that students love and will help you get off to a great start this school year!
Scoot the Rules
Sitting and listening to classroom expectations can be difficult for students and, in many situations, your upper elementary students have done this many times in your room before. To mix things up a bit, you can try a scoot activity. If you haven’t heard of a scoot activity before, it is an engaging and fun way to review or reinforce any concept. The idea is to get students up and moving by placing questions on cards around the room.
Students move from one card to another answering the questions on the cards. This could be done by having students move freely from question to question or you can use recorded or live music to signal when students should head to the next question.
To view the video explanation and example for what this type of activity might look and sound like click the image below or click here!
For the beginning of the year in music, you could include open ended questions with many possibilities for answers like:
- “What is important when we are using instruments?”
- “What does a good teacher/student look like?”
- “What was your favorite part of music last year?”
The answers students provide can be used to help co-construct expectations for the music room.
Want to include technology? The beginning of the year is a great time to give students some experience using some of the apps or programs you utilize throughout the year. You can add technology to this activity by recording each question and turning it into a QR code for students to scan, recording the questions on an app like Flipgrid for students to respond to using audio or video, or even create an answer sheet using whatever program you like to use for students to record their responses in written form. For instance, you could make a Book Creator template or a Google Slide presentation with a slide for each question.
Meet the Teacher Escape Room
Escape rooms are super engaging for students and can include any type of activities you want! The basic idea of an escape room is that students work to solve puzzles or answer questions to discover a secret code – or series of codes – which will allow them to “escape” the room or solve a mystery.
At the beginning of the year, an escape room can provide the chance to review previously learned curriculum and include some activities to learn more about you as the teacher. For instance, you could include a code based on things students could learn about you from your teacher desk area (favorite color, pets, etc.) or by including a true/false activity like this as one of the puzzles.
To learn more about setting up your first escape room, you can visit this link!
Review Bingo
To help students review topics from previous years, you can play a game of bingo (once students have completed their own bingo card)! Using a bingo card template, or just a table on your favorite word processing platform like Google Docs, you can add a review question into each box of the bingo board. Then, students can work to answer each question on their own or collaboratively by finding someone else in the room who knows the answer (I tell students that adults in the room are only allowed to answer 1 for each student!). Here is an example of a sample card:
Once student cards are complete, it’s time to play bingo by going square by square to review the correct answers. Correct answers on the students bingo card means they can mark that square. If students get 5 in a row (vertical, horizontal, or diagonal) correct, they earn a small prize!
*Tip: I made sure to include some get to know you type questions so all students could be successful in this activity regardless of their music literacy. I would also help direct students to others, especially students who they may not be friends with or have met previously, by saying things like “I think ______ might know the answer to that one! You should introduce yourself to them.”
Music Olympics
Olympic years are a perfect opportunity to have some fun in the music room! To set up your own version of Music Olympics in the music room, you can construct a list of events or activities to have each class participate in during the first few lessons of the year. Some examples might be having a steady beat event, a rhythm reading event, an instrument identification event, and so on.
In order to add the excitement of competition, you could have each class compete against other classrooms at that grade level. For example, one of the events might be note identification on the treble clef staff. After reviewing what students had previously learned, each member of the class could complete a 2 minute treble clef note naming game found HERE. You could add up all of the individual scores to get a whole class score. The class at the grade level with the highest combined score would earn gold for that event!
Katie also has another example of a Musical Olympics activity on the Midnight Music blog. Click here to view!
Music Room Scavenger Hunt
Teaching students about all of the different areas of your music classroom can take a lot of time! From book corners to instrument areas and places to dance, sing and play, our classrooms have so many opportunities but also lots of things to teach at the beginning of the year.
Rather than leading this conversation, you can have students find them on their own by completing a music room scavenger hunt! Provide students with a list of things they need to find in the classroom that will help them throughout the year.
Your scavenger hunt can include important locations or where to find important information in your classroom. Some examples might be:
- Where are the Kleenex located?
- Where does your device get put when you come into the room?
- Who is our spotlight composer?
You can get a free editable version of my classroom scavenger hunt by clicking here!
Name Compositions
I love incorporating books into my classroom! One of my favorites for the beginning of the year is “Your Name is a Song” by Jamiilah Thompkins-Bigelow. (Don’t worry: It is appropriate for those upper elementary kiddos, too!) Not only does it pair so well with many of the name games you probably already have as part of your beginning of the year lesson plans, it also provides a great opportunity for students to create their own music using Chrome Music Lab.
Once you have finished reading the story, students can use their student devices to head to the Chrome Music Lab Song Maker to compose their own name. It is up to students to decide what that means to them! In my classroom, many students literally spelled their name while others created symbols and words that they correlated with their name.
Once their compositions are complete, students can share what they had created along with any details about their name that they want. You can follow up this short listening activity by asking students if they like or dislike the way their song sounds. Then, you can use this activity as a way to continue to reinforce the elements of music and how to be an active listener to music.
What are some of your favorite lessons for the beginning of the year? Leave a comment below! We would love to keep this list going to help make the beginning of the year successful for all of the students we see in our music classrooms!
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About Katherine Miller
Katherine (Katie) Miller holds a Bachelor of Music in Education degree from Otterbein University (Westerville, OH) and a Masters of Educational Leadership from Antioch McGregor Midwest (Yellow Springs, OH). She has 15 years of professional musical experience as a music educator and performer.
She is currently employed by the School District of Waukesha in Waukesha, WI, where she teaches K-5 General Music and serves as a district model tech classroom. She was recognized in 2018 as a WPT Education Innovator by Wisconsin Public Television Education team. Twitter:K8TMiller
Looking for More Resources for Music Teachers?
Hello! I’m Katie Argyle – an Australian music technology trainer and consultant with a passion for helping music teachers through my business Midnight Music.
I’m a qualified teacher but no, I don’t currently teach in a school. I help teachers through my online professional development space – the Midnight Music Community – where there are tutorial videos, courses, links and downloadable resources.
I like to focus on easy ways to incorporate technology into what you are already doing in your music curriculum through a range of creative projects. I also run live workshops and have presented at countless conferences and other music education events.
If you want simple, effective ideas for using technology in music education, I would LOVE to help you inside the Midnight Music Community.
