#MusicWithMini

I remember the class very clearly. I was in my second week of teaching and about to lose my mind with these first graders. They were running and screaming and playing tag when they were supposed to be doing the hokey pokey and I was at my wits end. College did not prepare me for this.

"Sit down now or this class is not getting a star!"

Well, it caught their attention. They didn't know what a star was, or what it meant. Nor did their teacher, but I had captivated their attention for a whole second and I wasn't going to let it go to waste. "That's right!" I said "you're going to want to collect those stars for a popcorn and movie party." Improv at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen. Little did I know that those stars would come to be the very foundation of my music classroom management.

Here we are in year number 2, and the star system is still in full swing. Here is how it works. Each music class recieves a star, every day. Green stars are top stars, then yellow, then red. Since I see each class once a cycle, it shakes out to about one star a week. The goal for the classes is to collect 5 green stars. Once they do, they earn a popcorn and movie party for the class. Now, it's not any old movie, silly. We watch a musical! The breakdown is currently:

Kindergarten: Tarzan/Cinderella [Disney Movies are so short!]

1st Grade: Annie (from the 80's)

2nd Grade: Mary Poppins

3rd Grade: Pete's Dragon

4th Grade: The Wiz

What's beautiful for me is that the majority of my kids have never seen the movie that their grade level watches. They really get into them and I get to see the magic of musicals take over them. Because of they way the classes shake out, it takes about 3 classes to finish the movie, and then for the last "movie/popcorn party" we spend time comparing contrasting various youtube versions of the stage performances, and take time to learn one of the songs from the show. In a way, its really neat for me because I still get to do a "musical theatre unit" with each grade, but it gets spaced out throughout the year.

So how do the stars happen? Well this year I contrived a nifty little scale as to where our star is sitting so it's right out there in the open. The kids leave class, knowing what color star they got that day. If the class is chatty and I ask "I'm ready, are you?" and the chattiness continues, I simply move the star down one letter. Sometimes, if Im nice and the kids are quiet before I get to the board, I let it go. They have gotten really good at holding each other accountable for when the star goes up or down. Oh! Thats another part; the star can move both up and down. Some classes come in straight from lunch or recess and they can quickly knock down their star. When I sense that they're settling in and start working together, I bump their star back up for various things, like keeping their bodies under control.

Of course, this is certainly not the most perfect classroom management system, there are always going to be insividual students who do not earn the party, but for the vast majority of students this is a great motivational tool to get us through what we need to learn. It's easy, fun, and tangible!

I was recently blown away at the level of excitement that stars can bring to classes outside of music. Co-workers tell me it has become a part of morning meeting routine to talk about how many stars they have in music class.

Let's explore today a grade that I haven't talked about yet: FIRST! Oh first grade. So much energy, and very little capacity to read. That leaves me in quite a conundrum. How do I survive the very primary grades? Playlists.

There is a lot of singing that takes place in the younger classes. We have routines with interchangeable songs for our playlists. They usually run us 15 minutes or so, and are a great way for me to get all of the kids having a familiar background with some basics (like Mister Sun, Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me, and other kinds of nursery rhymes). However, another concept that us music teachers try to drill down at the younger grades is that of steady beat. I found a fabulous way to do this with my first graders and it has been on our playlist for 2 full months. Using Leroy Andersons "The Syncopated Clock", I created a dance that helps us keep the steady beat on different parts of our bodies, and to put some bigger movements together, while still counting the beat.

The video below is from the first day the students learned the dance in September. Needless to say (now 2 months later) they do all the counting themselves, and only receive a few cues from me. My classroom is full of cheers when the music comes on. Try it out in your classes and see if it is a hit!

#MusicWithMini

Classroom Management: Stars!

The Clock Dance