Be honest with me for a minute here- do you enjoy teaching elementary music recorder? Honestly, I don’t. At least, I didn’t like teaching them until recently. I would much rather teach ukulele or pianos (and I do both) than recorders. Do the students love the recorder? Yes, yes they do. For many students, this is the first (and sometimes only) instrument students will get as their very own! So, every year I pretend that it’s one of my favorite things ever. Now, in the spirit of planning activities that you, the music teacher, will enjoy, I have found a groove in teaching recorders that has helped me immensely. Let’s chat about how I’ve learned to teach recorders in a way that is fun for both the kids and me!
Basic Expectations for Elementary Music Recorders
The first day my students get their recorders, we need to go through some very basic expectations and guidelines. First, we’ll practice the kind of air we should be using to play our recorders. I’ll have the students hold their palms in front of them and blow cool, fast air like they’re blowing through a straw. Then, I’ll have them blow slow, warm air as if they’re trying to fog up a mirror. That’s the kind of air we want to use in our recorders! I describe it as whispering into your recorder.
“When do we get to take the recorders home??” The most important question the students ask. I don’t let them until they can play a 3-note song for me on recorders. The kids will be disappointed, but the parents will thank you. Plus, then you can make sure recorders come back the next day and no bad habits are being formed.
So we can blow into our recorder with an appropriate amount of air now, but now what? Well, let’s cover up some holes and make some notes! As we learn the first few notes, I’ll have the kids do the “finger check.” To do this, I’ll have them put all of their fingers down on both hands and squeeze for a few seconds. Then they’ll look at the pads of their fingers for circles. If they can see full circles on their fingers, they’re covering the holes completely. If they don’t see full circles, air could be leaking out and causing a student to squeak.
I also cover the basic rules and expectations for class and maintenance. First, when I or a classmate is talking, students are not playing. If a student is playing, I’ll give them a warning, and then I’ll take their recorder for a bit. “If you play before I say, your instrument will get taken away.” With that being said, I try to keep instruction brief. They’re excited and antsy to play!
Recorder Maintenance
To clean the recorders, I repeat over and over and over again that they cannot use paper products to clean their recorders. No napkins, no tissues, no toilet paper, no paper towel. Nothing made of paper! Still, almost every year I still have a student bring me their recorder with some kind of tissue stuck in their recorders. To use the cleaning stick, I tell the kids to use a small microfiber cloth like what you would get with glasses or to use a small square of an athletic shirt or men’s undershirt. To deep clean, they can put them in the sink of soapy water before they do the dishes, put it in the top rack of the dishwasher, or just lather it up with soap and water at the bathroom sink.
Whole Group
In the first few classes, I do whole group instruction only. I start with no fingers so students can work on tonguing instead of separating notes with their air. Then, I’ll echo patterns with just B. After we play we’ll introduce the note name and what it looks like in the music, and then we’ll open our book and play the first exercise. We do this with the first three notes.
I like to have students do a whole-part-whole lesson. We’ll all get together for the new note, then I’ll have them break up into groups of two or three to work on a song, and then we’ll come back and play the song together. The students working together give me a chance to walk around and help students who need it. Then I’ll have certain groups of students play so I can hear more individuals playing- odd/even classroom numbers, dark/light-colored shoes or shirt, or first/last half of the alphabet all work well to group students.
I used to only do whole group lessons, but I didn’t love the fact that I didn’t get to listen to individual students and give personalized feedback. Plus, whole group only can be loud and I didn’t love that I felt like I couldn’t cover things like composers, listening, composing, and theory. Keep reading for my solution!
Learning New Notes
One option for teaching an elementary music recorder unit that is very popular is Recorder Karate. I’ve used the original version and I’ve also created my own list of tests. This year decided to alter that idea into more of a gaming experience. Students will level up by playing a certain song for me out of their book and earn a new gem or badge for getting a 3 or 4 on our 4-point rubric. The students love the whole idea of playing and earning belts/experience or whatever theme you decide to go with! It’s really motivating for them.
To set that up, I just go through the book and pick songs for each test. I’ll backward plan it- so if I want students to end on a song with a high E, I’ll start there and work backward from there. I try to pick mostly songs that students know, though sometimes I’ll throw in a song they won’t know so that they can’t just figure out the notes by rote. I’ve found that having the first two or three songs be 3-note songs is really helpful to get students comfortable with playing the recorder and getting used to testing in front of me.
Will you let your students write in note names? I let them for the first four or so tests. After that, they can’t write them in. It can be a fine balance between helping them feel successful and pushing them to read the music and not just the note names.
Centers for Elementary Music Recorders
When I was ready to give up whole group lessons, I turned the majority of my recorder unit into centers. I have to say, there were a lot of things about doing centers that I loved! It started because we had to be spread out six feet when we were playing recorder and I just didn’t have the space for that, but I fell in love with being able to reinforce several concepts every single class. I really think it helps my students be more successful, too, and it breaks up the time more. My centers are about 8-9 minutes each because we have 50-minute classes.
I did 5 different centers:
- Practicing- students can practice for their test, ask me questions, but they can’t test.
- Testing- This is the time when students get to test for their belts. I have students test live, but I’ve also done online submissions using SeeSaw and Canvas. I just didn’t like how much time it took me to grade outside of class.
- Note Name Practice- I would find some kind of note name activity. Classics for Kids, YouTube videos, or sometimes a worksheet.
- Rhythm Practice- My favorite for this center is rhythm play alongs with songs they know! I’ve also done Classics for Kids.
- Listening/Extra- This is a free for all center. Sometimes I did a listening or composer lesson, sometimes it was writing a composition, and other times I just let them play on Chrome Music Lab!
Centers worked well, but I didn’t love that there wasn’t a lot of accountability. I saw students sitting and talking for the entirety of their center when I know the videos should have taken the entire time. My students liked centers better than whole group because it was faster paced, but it still wasn’t as much fun for them as I knew it could be.
Self-Paced Hybrid Recorder Unit
I knew I was on the right track with my recorder unit, but I also knew it could be something so much more than just centers. Then I remembered a fifth-grade teacher I used to work with who made some of their units into gaming units. They had tasks that helped them learn the concept and then they had a boss-level test. They loved learning this way, and I knew I could adapt it to be something that would work in a performance-based classroom, too.
So, I created my Jewel Hunt recorder unit. Students are hunting for 6 jewels, and to earn each one they have to complete tasks and complete the boss-level playing test. I made as many of the tasks self-checking as possible using Google Forms and students would bring their results to me to get checked off. This got students actually learning about composers, listening to new types of music, learning about note names or time signatures, and more. They composed and recorded videos of themselves playing their composition online which I could check periodically to keep them accountable.
The boss levels were playing tests. This allowed me the personalized feedback I missed from whole group, but it was fast-paced like centers. Students were held accountable because they had to check in with me in order to play their boss-level test. As a reward for passing their test, I made magnets for each level that they could put on their locker in their hallway.
Everyone loved this unit! I loved the personalization, my students loved the self-paced and game-like aspect of it (I got so much great feedback from students who loved being able to move quickly and those who moved slower), and my admin loved all of those things, too!
Conclusion
If you’re interested in checking out the unit that I use in my classroom, you can click here. It was a lot of work for me to put together, but I’ve done the hard part for you by giving you all the activities- you just have to import them into your learning management system! Or if you want to try your hand at creating your own self-paced unit, I walk you through the entire process and give you templates in this workshop!
Do you think that centers or a self-paced hybrid unit are activities that would work for your students? Leave your tips and tricks for teaching recorder below, or DM me on Instagram (@caffeinated.j) with your suggestions or questions! I love to chat about music education with colleagues!
