Do you ever feel like you have to teach creativity in the classroom? Your students are great at making up games on the playground, and have quite the imagination when they are telling stories, but then you ask them to create a story problem using the concepts you’ve taught and they struggle to even start.
Have you ever told yourself that you could never write a book or song because you aren’t creative? I know I have! Creativity isn’t something that you either have or don’t have. I fully believe that it is a skill that needs to be developed and practiced, and, just like time management, it is a skill we need to practice with our students.
Students struggle to think creatively because they are not asked to practice the skill of creative thinking on a regular basis. When we read, draw, or write, we are being creative. When we play video games we are, most of the time, not asked to be as creative as when we are given a blank piece of paper and told to create something (not that I think there is anything wrong with playing video games in moderation- I have a couple of video games that I enjoy playing!) Creativity is not like remembering how to ride a bike!
I believe that music should be taught for music’s sake. We are surrounded by music- in the car, on the elevator, in stores, in movies, in advertisements- and the less music education we have in schools, the less of that music we will have in our everyday lives. Fine arts should also be taught, however, for the skills that you learn when you take part of them. Among collaboration, determination, perseverance, empathy, and active listening, music is a great way to teach creativity.
I want to share three ways that you can take my lessons in music and use them in your own room, whether it be a music room or general education room.
1. Compose a Parody
Do you remember when Weird Al Yankovic was really popular? People loved that he took well-known songs and wrote new lyrics to them.
Parodies are a great way to incorporate music in your writing. I do parodies with fourth and fifth graders and it is one of their favorite assignments. I allow students to find a partner if they want one, and together they choose a song they know and a topic they can talk about. They replace the words of the song to create a new song on the topic of their choice.
Here’s my parody about my dog, Lenny:
I always have at least one group come up to me and tell me they don’t know what to write about. My answer to them is to first write down a few things they both enjoy. If one person likes baseball and the other likes basketball, they can still write about sports. They choose a song- they may need to compromise and pick a song one partner doesn’t know, or they can choose a simple song, like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and write the song out a couple of times to add verses.
You could make it even more challenging by giving them a general word bank with words they have to incorporate, or you could even have them write about a specific topic using the song of their choice. Most students love to present their parodies to the class, too!
2. Music Math
Another way to incorporate music into your curriculum and encourage creativity is by using rhythms to create long math equations! Every year I tell my students about the girl who was their age and didn’t think she was very good at math, but that she wasn’t going to need math anyways, because she was going to be a music teacher when she grew up. Well, she became that music teacher and now teaches fractions in her music class! (This is where the kids say, “THAT’S YOU!!! Yep, you caught me.)
Every rhythm is worth a certain number of beats, and explaining fractions to kids in terms of musical rhythms they have likely already learned about is a great way to spiral the curriculum and make it more relevant to them.
One way to do this is using rhythms they know and making them into mathematical equations. For example:
This is an example from a music math worksheet bundle that I created. It includes guides to show you how much each rhythm is worth, student worksheets, and answer keys. After practicing with the worksheets, you could have students create their own rhythm equations in which they have to trade with a friend to solve.
3. Create an Accompaniment with a Poem
Finally, you could take a poem that students are working on in class and add different a pattern while you say it- for example, I might use “pat clap pat clap” while I say the poem to help keep a steady beat. I would give students guidelines- the pattern shouldn’t be too long (4 beats- 1. “pat” 2. “clap” 3. “pat” 4. “clap”) so you can remember it, and it should repeat the entire time you say the poem.
Your students could get even more creative by adding instruments to the poem. For example, maybe instead of patting on their laps, they take a pencil and tap on the desk. Or, maybe they make different sounds using their chairs. Let them experiment and have fun.
Want to take it a step further? If the poem has multiple parts, have students create different patterns for each part. They could do “pat clap pat clap” for section A, “clap clap clap stomp” for part B, and then repeat “pat clap pat clap” for section A again. The couplet poem above has the form ABC and you can see that the patterns for each section is different. If a section of the poem repeats, the accompaniment should repeat, too.
What are some ways you encourage your students to be creative? I hope you to try out at least one of these activities in your classroom! Music is another way to reach your students, and I think you will find that they enjoy incorporating it in your classroom!
