Engaging upper elementary music students can be tough. I love my upper elementary music classes because they’re fun, I can joke with them, and they mostly get my sarcasm. But yikes, planning for them can be really hard! Getting them to sing is a challenge and many are too cool for music class.
It doesn’t have to be that way though!
Today we’re going to talk about some of my favorite ways to engage upper elementary music students that will get them excited about making music!
The composition pages you see in this post are part of my free composition worksheet packet. They’re good for all elementary students and can be easily differentiated. I use them for so many activities, and even leave them for substitute teachers! It’s totally free and it’s yours by clicking here.
Singing Games
Ye Toop Doram is one of my kids’ favorite games! I love that it gets us singing in a new language. It also gives us a chance to talk about form and major and minor.
But the kids love the game! For the game, I have the students sit in a circle with a ball. During the first section of the song, they pass the ball around the circle. On the word, “se,” whoever is holding the ball has to stand up and go in the middle of the circle. During the next section, the people still sitting will start rolling the ball at the standing child. The person can jump and move to dodge getting hit. If they get hit, they’re out. If they can make it to the end of the song, they can get back in the circle and keep playing.
Ida Red Ida Blue is another fun game for engaging upper elementary music students. I use this song to teach 1 eighth-2 sixteenth note combinations.
To play the game, students will sit in a circle. I have a red envelope and a blue envelope (I just folded construction paper to make an envelope.) Each envelope has several action words in it- hop, skip, gallop, grapevine (a lot of kids know this as karaoke), crab walk, bear crawl… just to name a few. One mailman will walk around the circle and hand the envelopes to the two people he’s closest to at the end of the song. Those students will open an envelope and pull out a card. They race around the circle, going opposite directions, doing whatever movement they pulled out of their envelope. Whoever gets back to their spot first gets to be the next mailman.
After I found that “Chicken on a Fencepost” has a questionable past, I retired the song from my classroom. My kids LOVED the game that went with the song, though, and I couldn’t find a good replacement for it until I ran across Aimee’s blog post about a song she wrote called “Chicken and Foxes.” It is perfect for teaching sixteenth notes, which is what I used the other song for as well, and the kids still get to play the game! Since it’s her song, I’ll direct you to her page to learn the song and read about the game that goes with it!
Compositions
Compositions are a fantastic option for engaging your upper elementary music students! Kids love having choices- even my toddler is happier when she has choices! So compositions are a great way to give students freedom and a chance to be creative while also working on their musical skills.
The parody unit I do with fifth graders is one of my favorite projects! First, we talk about what a parody is. I usually give an example by creating a song about my dog to the tune “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” This year when I introduce parodies, I’m going to use the book, “Twinkle Twinkle Dinosaur.” It’s absolutely adorable.
After we talk about what a parody is, I’ll let the kids partner up and start their parody. They’ll pick a topic they want to talk about, a song they both know, and start changing the words! Some groups choose nursery rhymes and other groups prefer to pick a popular song they know. You could then extend this by having students create a percussion part to go with it- they could add chords on xylophones or ukuleles or an ostinato on drums.
Body percussion is an easy, resource-free way to get the kids composing. This is the perfect activity to leave for a sub. I like to use a 4×4 grid where each box is a beat. Students will add a rhythm we’re working on in each box, then decide on a movement for each box. The movement should be the same number of sounds as the rhythm in the box. For example, if I have two eighth notes, I might pat my legs twice. But I always have to explain that there are some things that aren’t really one move- the floss dance is really several moves that don’t show us a certain number of sounds. You can get a free copy of the matrix (plus tons of other composition worksheets) here!
You could extend this activity by having students perform their composition on drums. Or, you could have students add a note name to each rhythm and have them transfer it to xylophones. If you want to go even further, help students transfer the 4×4 grid to staff paper.
Using poetry to create a melody is another way to hook students. Students will likely be working on poetry in their classrooms at some point, and they would love it if you did a little cross-curricular activity! Have students bring a piece of their poetry, or you can find some poetry for them to use. I would recommend choosing shorter poems. Students will take that poem and create a melody to go with it. They can transfer that to xylophones and perform for the class. You could even have them record it on Seesaw, FlipGrid, or your learning management system (if your district policy allows) so that parents can see their performance!
Genius Hour
What is GH? Genius Hour, or Passion Projects or 20% time, is the idea of giving students time to pursue their interests. The concept comes from Google, which allows its employees to pursue their passions for 20% of the week. The company found that employees were more productive when given time to work on their own projects. In fact, Google News was developed by an employee during this time!
I’ve done genius hour a couple of different ways. At one school, we had each class two times per week for 30 minutes each. When that was my schedule, I did a normal music lesson the first class, and then the second class would review for a few minutes and then allow about 20 minutes for Genius Hour. The project was ongoing and lasted for a semester- as students finished, they presented and then started a new project. At my current school, I see each class one time per week for 50 minutes. Because of COVID, students couldn’t always work with the same partner throughout the year because they had to stay in cohorts, which changed when a teacher needed to switch their seats in class. So, I made it into a 6-week project and that was all students worked on for the 6 weeks.
Does it take a lot of time? Yes. Do I think it’s worth the time it takes? Also yes. The kids learned so much about music that they were interested in. Honestly, I learned a lot! I had a lot of students who did projects on certain artists, but I also had students who created instruments or learned about music from around the world. It’s one of my favorite units in fifth grade, and really stretches the students to think about what they’re actually interested in when it comes to music.
If you’re interested in reading more about how I do genius hour in the music room, check out this post. It’s one of my top ways of engaging upper elementary music students! You can click here to purchase the journal that the students use to document their learning.
So there you have it! Which of these ideas do you see your kids loving? Don’t forget to download your free composition worksheets (check out my favorite ways to use those for lower and upper elementary!) Then, be sure to comment below or head over to Instagram and DM me (@caffeinated.j) so we can talk about the best ways to get our “too cool for school” kids excited about music!
