If you struggle to teach and practice routines & procedures in elementary music or just need some NEW IDEAS, here are some actionable steps!
Let’s look at WHAT we need and then HOW to teach it!
Continue reading “How To Teach Routines And Procedures in Elementary Music”Your room is too small for all your resources and the large class sizes at your school! How will this ever work? Or maybe you’re a new teacher with a big beautiful room but don’t know where to begin. Let’s look at some best practices along with tips and tricks to set up an elementary music room!
Transform your chaotic classroom into a harmonious haven with these top tips for a super functional elementary music room set up!
This post may contain affiliate links. I make a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read my full disclosure.
The Playlist
Continue reading “How to Set Up An Elementary Music Room”Elementary music classroom essentials and must-haves will be determined by your teaching philosophy, teaching space, budget, and students. Let’s look at how these factor into your decision-making, some of the most common choices among music teachers, and then a basic list of must-haves!
The Playlist
The best essentials are the ones that match your teaching philosophy. If you’re a first-year or newer music teacher, this will change over time. If you student taught and used lots of rhythm stick learning and your classroom doesn’t have them, that’s a great resource to obtain. Here’s how to proceed.
Look at the existing items in your room and determine what you’d like to use in your teaching. For example, if you have a class set of ukuleles and have never played before, you need to research how to teach with them or store them for the next teacher. If you have a bunch of broken rhythm sticks and you want to use them, figure out a way to fix them or put them on your wishlist. Go through the entire room this way.
If you are a new (er) teacher and you inherit a room of what you think is not useable, I suggest Marie Kondo-ing the budget-minded music teacher way. Three piles: trash, not sure, keep.
Trash would be damaged beyond repair, worksheet copies that are for who knows what, and outdated equipment such as giant computer screens, etc. The “not sure” group might be your biggest and I’d take a year to digest these items. I’d suggest hopping on a Facebook music teacher group and running items by the members. You’ll get a consensus pretty quickly if it’s worthy.
Do not, I repeat DO NOT throw out all old textbook series with CDs. I’d keep one copy of each textbook and all the CDs. Yes, there are some really crappy songs on some of them but also some JEWELS! AND, they come with accompaniment tracks. If you want to get a song for a concert, you can buy the music and an accompaniment mp3 on a music site for $50 or more. But the textbooks may contain lots of songs with accompaniments for FREE! You will have to get an external CD drive to get them on your computer, but if the school doesn’t have one, they are less than $50 on Amazon.
The size, location, and hardware in your room matter SO much! You can’t buy a huge parachute in a long, narrow room. If you are on a stage by the gym or next to classrooms, I wouldn’t put drumming high on my list. If your room has no sound system, that might need to go to the top of your list. Your teaching space dictates a lot of your decisions.
A yearly budget varies widely from school to school. It can go from $0 to hundreds of dollars. Sometimes schools will get a year of an extra bump or be renovating and get several thousand dollars.
Then there’s your decision to fundraise or not. The big national entity is DonorsChoose and then there are local and regional opportunities. No matter what, it takes time, persistence, and more time.
What you need will depend on the grade levels you teach. K-8, K-5, Prek-2, 3-5. You want to offer a diversity of learning to ALL students but maybe a community has a particular cultural interest that you want to pull into your teaching. Your resources might reflect that interest. Perhaps you will be teaching a lot of students with special needs and accommodations so certain resources will provide better participation for those situations. The school environment can create situations where classroom management necessitates less student movement in the room. All of these situations and more can have an impact on what you need.
Here are the most common item choices you will find for music rooms.
My K-5 students sat on the floor in assigned seats and I never used sit spots. Some teachers always use sit spots. It’s up to you. Chairs were stacked along the side or in the hallway because I taught K-8 and I had them mainly for my middle school students. Stools (IKEA) were stacked against the wall and used for drumming, ukuleles, or sometimes learning centers. My goal was to keep things as open as possible for movement activities and to easily get out the barred instruments.
Check out my favorite equipment, instruments, and resources with product details & buying information.
Ask 10 teachers and you’ll get 10 different answers. The quantities are what I like-heavy on the woods. One metallophone is VERY loud. You don’t need bunches of them. Zimbabwe-style pieces (Walt Hampton) are fabulous and dependent on having lots of xylophones. I taught in many different types of schools and I never EVER had a student not LOVE these pieces. I went heavy on xylophones.
If I was starting from zero, I’d start with soprano xylophones, then glockenspiels, a bass xylophone, altos, then the rest. This would give me a combination of lower cost instruments to get more kids playing. Studio 49, Sonor, and Peripole are the best. Suzuki and Rhythm Band should be avoided. (However, I bought a Suzuki xylophone on ShopGoodwill so if it’s super cheap, go for it.)
These instruments are great for sound stories. In a class of 24, you could have 4 groups (6 to a group) for Goldilocks. The groups could be Daddy Bear (wood blocks & tone blocks), Momma Bear (maracas & egg shakers), Baby Bear (triangles & finger cymbals), Goldilocks (rhythm sticks).
*My favorites & most used.
These are my favorite instruments in the music classroom. The learning can continue into adulthood. Kids can easily play along to songs they love. Here are all my buying recommendations AND an entire free ukulele curriculum based mainly on playing chords.
Lots of teachers (me included) get a class set of the Remo tuneable tubano drums. They are sturdy, sound good, have feet and a hand grip. If I had it to do over again, I would have gotten a mix of djembes, congas, etc. too. I like the diversity of sound better and they can be a bit cheaper. The problem with them is that they have to be tipped when you play them so that would be a challenge for the K-3 crowd. Whatever you get, don’t get anything that isn’t tuneable. They’ll eventually lose their resonance and sound awful.
They are fun because of the drumsticks and the variety of sounds you can get but if you have a class set of drums, I think you can skip bucket drumming. If you don’t have hand drums or a budget, this is the way to go! You can petition Lowes or Home Depot to donate them to you.
These hand-held drums are so great. I had a class set but rarely used them as a set. I think you could get 10 in a couple of sizes and be fine. Use them in combination with rhythm sticks and other un-pitched percussion or as a B section to a barred instrument piece. (but then again you could use hand drums for that too) I got the Remo Pre-tuned Fiberskyn and they worked fine although some eventually lost their zing.
Cajons are so useful because they’re small, provide a great sound, don’t need a chair/stool, and are super portable. Two is a great number to have, for the teacher to use but also for students to use in ensembles, small group work, and as an accompaniment to a class song.
Your two choices are to buy recorders for each student and keep them in your room or let the kids purchase their own.
The instrument I love to hate! LOL. BWs are so fun and kids love them and they serve several worthy teaching purposes. They are the perfect low-cost class set option if you don’t have much of a budget. Here’s a table to help with how many you need to order.
I had student full-sized keyboards (2 students to a keyboard) mainly because I taught middle school. Because I had them, I ran a mini-unit in 4th and 5th grade. They require a lot of storage space and accessories. (power source, extension cords, splitters, headphones)
Check out my favorite equipment, instruments, and resources with product details & buying information.
A large class parachute is SO fun and you can pair movement with learning about high/low, pitch, form, and many music elements. I eventually got partner parachutes too and they are just magical. Here’s more about them.
Bean bags are great for passing circle games, target games, and more.
Scarves are magical for Prek-2 and maybe older depending on your students. They are great for using movement and hand/eye coordination, high/low, musical form, smooth/bumpy, beat/no beat, and much more. You can buy tulle or other light fabricd at JoAnn Fabric and cut it up into 2′ x 2′ squares or buy online at West Music or PE supply stores. I invested in some amazing, floating silk scarves.
Kids love ribbon wands but I think they’re a pain in the patoot. They are always knotting up or flicking someone in the head. Did I have them? Yes. Did I use them? Yes. But I didn’t use them that often. They wouldn’t be at the top of my wishlist.
Great children’s literature is very important to include in your teaching and there are so many options here. Many teachers buy their own books and then take them with them when they leave the school so classrooms may not have much that stays in-house. Use your local library to borrow books until you can acquire books you love and want to own. There are also many online versions of books on Libby and YouTube.
Your district may have a scope and sequence to use. Old textbook series usually have a really nice basic K-6 scope and sequence at the back of every teacher’s edition. Musicplay is the most affordable online option that is praised by many teachers. There are also curriculum purchase options from TPT and other music teacher content creators.
Finding music for classroom use and concert use can be a HUGE problem. Music with mp3s is costly to buy from sheet music companies. This is one of the most challenging elementary music classroom essentials.
Many teachers love Music K8 because you get lots of music (not all useable though) for not a lot of money. You can get a yearly subscription and then buy singles that come with the music and mp3s. The subscription by itself is not going to give you everything you need, though it will help.
Musicplay gives you tons of classroom curricular options and some concert options as well.
Dry-erase boards are so wonderful for quick assessments, composing and creating, and for use in learning centers. Pocket sleeves allow you to insert a paper for guided learning to be used multiple times.
A couple of noise-cancelling earmuffs are great to have for kids who are noise-sensitive. Some kids will bring their own. Regular headphones are a must to have on hand for learning centers.
Check out my favorite equipment, instruments, and resources with product details & buying information.
If I was starting with an empty room…
The biggest thing to remember is that it doesn’t matter what another music teacher is using, doing, or teaching. What matters is YOUR teaching philosophy and curriculum and what you need to implement them. As you gain experience, your teaching ideas will probably broaden and you can then add new items to your elementary music classroom essentials list.
If you’ve made it to the bottom, congratulations! Even though this post took a lot of thought, I know it’s going to still need some editing as I think of items that I’ve missed along the way. Help me out! What do I need to add? Thanks for your help! Laura
Learn about jazz with these EASY jazz music activities using instruments, singing, movement, and creating. Perfect for K-8 elementary music.
Jazz is perfect all year long but can be a special emphasis in February for Black History Month, March for Women’s History Month, or April for Jazz History Month.
The Playlist
Continue reading “The Best Jazz Music Lessons and Activities K-8”Music educators generally teach a wide variety of grade levels and a common challenge is engaging older students. Let’s look at how we can have better engagement in elementary music using small group music projects.
The Playlist
We’ll start with the reasoning behind small groups and their effectiveness. Then on to how to set them up. Or skip straight to the lesson plans to see if they will work for you.
Unlike a homeroom/classroom, music classes meet relatively infrequently so building relationships and trust with students takes more time.
Students often consider special area classes a “break” from the rigors of their other classes which can make engagement and classroom management more challenging, especially for grades 4-8.
Continue reading “Better Engagement Using Small Group Music Projects”“This is boring.” “My fingers hurt.” You often hear students new to the ukulele relay their frustrations about learning the instrument. Getting away from direct instruction and using easy Orff ideas for your ukulele curriculum is a great way to re-engage your students when they hit a plateau in their ukulele learning journey.
Or, add an Orff approach all along to prevent burnout in the first place.
Let’s add movement and speech to our curriculum along with play, imitation, improvisation, and experimentation.
The Playlist
A lunar or solar eclipse is a great time in elementary music to integrate music and science. Here are a variety of eclipse and sun, moon, and Earth music activities for kids K-6.
The Playlist
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon appears in between the sun and the earth, blocking the sun’s light.
A lunar eclipse occurs when the earth appears in between the sun and the moon, casting a shadow on the moon.
A solar eclipse takes place during the day time, when there is a new moon. A lunar eclipse takes place during the night, when there is a full moon.
According to timeanddate, most years have 4 with a maximum (rare) of 7! Eclipses are happening worldwide all the time! Let’s look into the future!
| Date | Event | Type | Visibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sept 7-8 2025 | Lunar Eclipse | Total | Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Arctic, Antarctica |
| September 7 | Supermoon | Full Moon | Worldwide |
| September 21 | Solar Eclipse | Partial | Southern Australia, Pacific, Atlantic, Antarctica |
| October 5 | Supermoon | Full Moon | Worldwide |
Solar Eclipse Vocabulary
Total-the moon completely covers the face of the sun. Partial-the Moon comes between the Sun and Earth, but the Moon only partially covers the Sun’s disk. Annular-the Moon covers the Sun’s center, leaving the Sun’s visible outer edges to form a “ring of fire” or annulus around the Moon.
Lunar Eclipse Vocabulary
Total-the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon and its shadow covers the Moon. Eclipse watchers can see the Moon turn red when the eclipse reaches totality. Partial-the Earth moves between the Sun and the Full Moon, but they are not precisely aligned. Only part of the Moon’s visible surface moves into the dark part of the Earth’s shadow. Penumbral-when the Moon moves through the faint, outer part of Earth’s shadow, the penumbra. This type of eclipse is not as dramatic as other types of lunar eclipses and is often mistaken for a regular Full Moon.
Here’s the perfect song and fun circle game about lunar and solar eclipses.
Then, a spoken, rhythmic B section, all with an engaging Orff arrangement.
There’s MORE!
A Poison Pattern game & parachute activity along with a simple C chord for ukulele AND simple TAB melody play!
It’s no or super low prep with step-by-step slides.
Perfect for elementary teachers and substitutes, this collection of read-aloud videos of musical story books lets you save your voice or engage students with the book. Includes top video read-alouds and BONUS follow-up activities.
Use the searchable musical elements, subject integrations, and grade levels for pre-school and elementary students.
⭐️ Look for the BONUS: A FOLLOW UP for each video with a fun singing game/activity!
How is literature used in an elementary music classroom?
Some teachers purposefully focus on reinforcing both reading and music skills during lessons that integrate children’s literature, while others focus on reinforcing music concepts or skills.
Brown, Holly Ann, “Children’s Literature in the Elementary General Music Classroom” (2019). Theses and Dissertations. 2162. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/2162
The Music Library
This post may contain affiliate links. I make a small commission at no additional cost to you. Read my full disclosure.
Read-Aloud videos of musical story books are a great option when you need a screen presentation. Getting the hard-copy book is the perfect intimate setting to read and do your own interpretation, sound effects, and discussion.
Let’s get away from the smartboards and screens and learn about rhythm in a more intimate setting! We’ll explore the benefits of using a rhythm activities board in elementary music class and provide a step-by-step guide on how to create one without breaking the bank.
In the world of elementary music education, sometimes the simplest tools can create the most magical moments. One such tool is the low-cost, no-tech rhythm activities board, a versatile resource that fosters an intimate learning setting, encourages student interaction, and adds a touch of hands-on magic to rhythm lessons.
Content Breakdown
Continue reading “How to Make a Low-Cost, No-Tech Rhythm Activities Board”Here are some new ideas for music and STEM learning centers in the general and music classrooms using the TinkerTar!
The TinkerTar is an innovative instrument that provides a perfect starting point for kids in general AND elementary music classrooms. With a single string, its colorful fretboard, easy-to-read book, and sturdy construction, the TinkerTar is an excellent addition to any music and STEM learning center.
Designed as an alternative to the ukulele and guitar, it offers a beginning learning experience for students who may later try the guitar. Its simplicity also offers the chance for some great STEM learning as well.
