If you haven’t used Chrome Music Lab, it is a free site usable on all devices. This is the bread and butter for my music technology units. There are many experiments that are worth checking out, like Rhythm, Shared Piano, Arpeggios, and Kandinsky. The most useful by far is the Song Maker.
Song Maker is a versatile, yet simple page. It allows students to manipulate the grid on the screen to organize sounds into patterns, or musical ideas. If you dive into the settings, you can adjust your page to have different time signatures, keys and up to 16 measures. Ideas can easily be saved via URL and sent as well. The possibilities are endless with this one.
I use the Song Maker as a tool to teach music composition. Students in my class use boomwhackers frequently. The notes are color coded to match the boomwhackers, so it is a great way to reinforce scale degrees and how we apply it to solfege or singing with numbers.
I create units on my LMS (currently Canvas) for students to open a lesson, and complete the task given to them by reading the directions with minimal explanation. Students frequently impress me with their abilities on this program.
For more on how to use Chrome Music Lab for composing or learning notation, check back soon. I will be adding free pre-made units for you to use in a future blog post.
MusiQuest is a new site for me this year, but it is quickly becoming a focus in my classroom. This is similar to Chrome Music Lab’s Song Maker, but more advanced. The layout is more like a DAW like GarageBand or BandLab.
This is a browser based DAW, no installs are required to run it. There are paid versions of it, but you can also use it for free with students to practice concepts. It is definitely work checking out!
With this program, you can set your page up and recreate well known songs. My students have really enjoyed recreating music that we talk about in class, or whatever the flavor of the month is, like Soda Pop or My Idol from K-Pop Demon Hunters.
MusiQuest has a ton of paid content that does a lot of the heavy lifting for you if you want to go that route.
My school has very little to put toward music, so I stick with the free options most of the time. With that, I’ve created a handful of lessons that you are welcome to use in your classroom. Click here for more information.
One of the more popular activities in music class is taking time to play fun songs using boomwhackers in a gamified way. I personally love using these YouTube videos because it reinforces scale degree, and can easily be adapted to other instruments.
For focus on melodies, I love to use musication. Jan’s videos are incredibly well done, and can be used in a variety of ways.
Musication
For notes that fall down the screen, here are some that I enjoy using:
Swick’s Classroom
Hahn’s Studio
Mr. G’s Boomwhacker Channel– Massive resource of traditional classroom tunes.
Some of the following are not considered classroom appropriate in many countries, but many are still great options to be considered. Always preview what you use! Below are two Danish content creators who have made a lot of great stuff!
Whack Em All
Emil PlayAlong
There are many ways that you can use Boomwhackers in a performance. You can use them as a comic relief instrument and do skits with them, or make the a feature like in the song Splash of Blue. I’ve used them in a mixed setting as well, performing Carol of the Boombuckets.
Songs that have repetitive motifs or sections are prime targets for these instruments. If it isn’t out there, arrange your own version of it!
Sheet music for:
Splash of Blue
Carol of the Boombuckets
Ukulele (and guitar) are incredible instruments to learn as a kid. For better or worse, many students have access to the internet during most of the hours that they are awake during the day. When I teach ukulele to a student, I want to give them the tools that they need to learn how to play the instrument on their own.
With the work that we do in the classroom, they learn how to read and decipher chord charts or playalong videos. If they can understand the concepts taught in a YouTube tutorial, they will then have access to a wealth of material at their fingertips on their own.
(Giving them a fishing pole rather than a fish comes to my mind.)
Learning the basic C, Am, F and G chords are essential with the instrument. I usually start off with C and Am, as they are single finger chords. F to G7 is a pretty easy transition as well, but harder than a single finger. Once they can play a regular G chord, I then do a lot of stations in my room where I will have packets of chord charts for them to work through. They always include more chords to learn, so students who want to go past the basics can explore it. With the understanding of how to read chord charts, they are usually able to get there on their own without my help.
I will be making a blog post in the future about what I use specifically in the classroom and will share my resources with you!
Tablature can be intimidating at first, especially in a class setting. I teach this concept as an extension to learning chords. I find that chords tend to be more instant-gratification, and tablature to help transition casual players to those who want to go further. Often those who enjoy learning tablature lean toward interest on guitar.
I start off with teaching a few basic patterns so they understand how to read it, then continue on with simple melodies. I use group stations to encourage the students to help each other as they learn. Partner your strong players with weaker ones to overall increase the level of playing in your classroom.
Bit of advice on this topic: A lot of kids know what they want to play. Let them give you song requests, do the research and offer them chord or tab charts for it. If you can find it for them, they get very excited and are often much more driven to learn. You may also learn from the kids in this way too!
A blog post about tablature will be coming soon to offer resources on this topic.
Guitars are one of the most recognizable and common instruments to find. Often times, students will tell me that they have a guitar at home, but it is out of tune, or missing strings, or they just don’t know where to begin. Have a guitar (1/2 or 3/4 size) in your room for students to try out. If you don’t know how to play, teach yourself how to play a few basic chords and learn how to restring/tune them. Those things are pretty easy skills to develop, and can go a long way with encouraging students to learn music outside of your classroom. I like to find students who gravitate toward these instruments and give them performance opportunities.
More to come on this topic!
Order an E-kit (electronic drum kit) for your classroom. Seriously.
Kids love to drum. All of the time music teacher incorporate rhythm to the lessons that we teach. If you are playing a song in class that has a classic drum beat to it, demonstrate the beat on your lap and offer a student the chance to play the drum set during the song! I do this all the time when we play boomwhacker playalongs especially. You don’t have to be a drummer to incorporate this. Who knows, you might even find that you enjoy learning this if you are new to it! (I did, I started learning in 2023 and have been so grateful since.)
Having an E-kit in your room really opens up the possibilities when it comes to classroom activities and performance opportunities. If you’ve never considered it, or wouldn’t know where to begin, I’ll help. I’ll be adding a blog post about this topic that has what you need to get started.
Check back if you don’t see a link here yet.
Bucket drumming is such a fun, cost-effective activity to do with your students. If you are just getting started and have no equipment, I’d recommend doing a SignUp Genius to ask your parents to donate buckets to your program and sticks to your program. They can buy them from a local hardware store usually for around $5 in the states. If you are particular about the color, be mindful of where you recommend they purchase them from (Lowes = blue, Home Depot = orange, Ace Hardware = white).
Here is a list of recommended items to start:
Speaking of Skye Starhawk, she has incredible bucket drumming resources, including a couple of free beginner songs (Yuck and Hey!) that are easily modifiable to fit your group perfectly. I believe her site is no longer up, but her YouTube page has a ton of valuable resources and is worth your time checking out!
If you do choose to incorporate a drumset into your elementary program, a simple way to teach everyone fundamentals on the drumset is to teach them basic snare/high-hat/bass patterns.
To keep it simple, you can use traditional drum notation and Use center head for high-hat, the rim for the snare, and their foot on the floor for the bass.
I usually make a playlist of songs that I enjoy playing along to and teach them various drum beats to go with them. Incorporate multiple genres so you can use it as an opportunity to expose them to new music, while also playing ones that generally everyone enjoys.
For me, bucket drumming is too loud to do inside on its own.
I was doing music on a cart for years, but I still wanted to find a way to do buckets inside a classroom. What I found was actually a really great way to make new sounds that work for indoor drumming too.
Using a dense pool noodle (2.5-inch thick worked well for me), I cut them in half and then put sections of the pieces onto the bucket. I taped it up with duct tape, and I created some version of tenor drums on a bucket.
I thought it sounded pretty cool, so I have never gone back to the plain bucket head. On a performance stage, the sound is very deep and impressive. The buckets don’t get cracked either, they seem to last much longer.
For a sound comparison, check out this video of me demonstrating the differences. Note, it is a phone recording, so take that with a grain of salt.
When I teach this style of bucket, I use the following as a guide for my students:
I’ll have this section updated soon. Feel free to check my two blog posts for some winter ideas. I’m using both of these with 1st grade this year.
This section will have information about recording performances, and putting multi-media items in your programming. Things like transition videos, motion graphic designs for the screens, and student-incorporated activites/projects to add to your programs.
