Project Magic- Keeping Cool Kids Engaged in Music – A Step-by-Step Guide Episode 55

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Are you an elementary music teacher who's free? Frustrated and overwhelmed. I'm Jeannette Shorey, a happy music teacher who loves teaching every day, but it wasn't long ago I was in your shoes. Join me Wednesdays to help you find happy in your music classroom.

You're having a problem. Cause I'm having a problem. It is getting towards the end of the year. Testing is happening. Kids are after spring break and all the things, all the behavior things are happening. Most importantly, or I shouldn't even say most importantly, most distressingly, if that's a word, I'm not even sure that's a word, but most distressingly is those kids who are too cool for school, those fifth graders, and if you have sixth graders, oh my gosh, bless you, because I can't even imagine.

They are like done. They're, they're like, I'm out of here and I don't care anymore. They have, quote unquote, senioritis. And that makes them even harder to deal with. Plus, you know, the hormones are kicking in. All this stuff is happening. So I've got a step by step guide today to help you design some project based learning for your intermediate students, your fourth graders, your fifth graders.

If, like I said, God forbid you have sixth graders. So here's the deal. Your big kids are not, they're, they're just not on board with the traditional methods that you're teaching them anymore. They're like, okay, I'm too cool. I'm a big kid. And even though you know, they're not a big kid, they think they're a big kid.

And they are like, I don't want to do this anymore. This is like all baby stuff and they're ready. They're like, okay. For something more, just high level. So the first thing that you want to do when you start a project is you want to talk about how high level this is. And in a few moments, we're going to talk about some good projects that you can get into.

But. One of the advantages of doing a project is that they get to work on their own. So automatically they're going to feel like big kids because you're giving them some responsibility. And legit you are giving them some responsibility. So step one is to talk about how high level this project is because you're giving them responsibility You're allowing them to work in groups and they get to create for themselves.

So that's really a big deal for them because now you've made them feel like big kids. And honestly, that's going to be your battle one. Because instead of talking down to them, instead of teaching to them, instead of, you know, doing all the teaching yourself, you are giving them the responsibility and making them feel like you think they're big kids.

Even if you don't. Step two, you need to set up a structure. This is of the utmost importance. So when I do project based learning, I divide them into groups. You can let them choose your own group if you want to. Usually, I will let them choose their own group because again, I'm going to say to them, I'm counting on you to be responsible.

I'm counting on you to make sure that you are choosing a group of people that you can work with. Before you divide them into the groups, You're going to tell them the expectations, you're going to give them the step by step guide, and there will be a step by step guide in the show notes. If you go to storiesthatsing.

net forward slash guide, you will get a guide. that will help you through this process. So you're going to give them a step by step guide and then you're going to make them accountable. If you do not make them accountable, they are not going to do the work because they think it's all fun and games in the music classroom.

They don't understand that they're working. They don't understand that they're learning. Honestly, most of the time they have no clue that you're grading them. When I tell my bigger kids that I'm grading them, they're always like, We get a grade in here and I'm like, uh, hello, it's on your report card, has been on your report card.

So, you want to make sure that you make them accountable. This is how you make them accountable. First of all, you check their work often. By giving them specific dates of when they need to be done with certain tasks. So, for example, If the first step in their project is that they have to make a decision on what they are doing for the project, then you need to give them a date.

Okay, by the end of today, you need to have a decision on what you are doing for your project. Then you're going to give them another date. You have two weeks, To work on the logistics of your project, whatever it happens to be. I'll give you more specific examples when I give you some examples of types of project based learning.

But you want to make sure that you give them specific dates and keep telling them. Remember, This class period and next class period is all you have to do. Okay, boys and girls, you've only got 15 more minutes until this part of your project is due. I always work with the Google Sheet. If you don't use Google, then find another way to do this.

And I share the Google Sheet with their classroom teacher. And I make sure that the classroom teacher is aware that that this is happening in my classroom and that they have to be accountable and that they have due dates for certain things. Once you share and you tell your students you are sharing it with their classroom teacher, boy, they're going to take it a lot more seriously.

Let me just tell you. Check their work often, make sure that you're walking around. I, I had one year that I gave, probably the very first year that I gave a project. And, I don't know, I just kind of expected. I don't know what I was thinking. I'd been teaching quite a long time at this point. But, I expected that they were going to do the work and I had, there was one day that I had like something I had to get done and I was like, Oh, I'll just, I'll be fine.

And they'll be working on their projects. Oh no, no, no. That did not work out at all. So, you know, how dumb am I that I didn't. Okay. Self talk. Jeanette. How, how very naive to, to think that they are going to, when you're not correct, when you're not, when you're not. check in their work. So make sure you walk around, make sure you ask do they need help, all those kinds of things.

Step three, you want to have guidelines in place for first of all, if there is a disagreement. Second of all, so that everybody in the group has an opportunity to share their ideas. You want to make that very clear that if there are four people in your group, Nobody is the writer. You pass the paper around, the clipboard around with the paper, with the worksheet, whatever, and, or the sticky notes.

Give everybody, honestly, probably your better bet is to give everyone their own sticky notes, and let them write their ideas, and then, uh, I'm going to put them all together for the group to look at. So you want to make sure that nobody says, Oh no, we can't do that or none of us like that or whatever. So to solve those kinds of problems, what I do is I'll say like, sometimes I'll say I need two boys and two girls in the group, or I need an equal amount of boys and girls in the group.

When I'm creating groups. I don't do more than four in a group, they have to have special permission for more than four, and usually I don't allow it because it's too hard, they can have three, if they want to work on their own, they can totally do that, that's absolutely fine, so those are some things to keep in mind with groups, but you want to make sure that everybody in the group gets a chance to share.

So sometimes when you've got boys and girls, maybe some people want to do movement and some people don't, or maybe not even when you have boys and girls, but you know, you'll have differences of opinion. So what I'll say to them is, If some people want to move and some people don't, then the people that want to move can move, and the people that don't want to move don't have to move.

If some people want to sing and some people don't, then the people that want to sing can sing. So I don't want there ever to be a forced Like oh my gosh, I have to sing now even though I don't like to sing or I have to you know Whatever it happens to be. I don't want it to feel forced I want this to be a good and positive experience that they want to do again So that is step two is to set up that structure Step three.

Step three. Have a performance or a demonstration day. So that is also something that helps to make them accountable. So if you say to them, okay, we're going to be working on this for three weeks. This needs to be done by week one. This needs to be done by week two. This is week three. Week three is when we do our rehearsal and we are pretty much done and ready.

Week four, we are going to have a performance day. I do not invite parents. It is not outside of their classroom. It is during my class time. We have a performance day. And then I record the results. And I email those results to the teacher. So that the teacher can then send it out to the adults that take care of the children at home.

So, it is really important. To make them accountable for the performance. Now, if you have a kid, which I can't tell you this, this probably happens to me every year, at least one child does not like to perform, has terrible stage fright, et cetera, et cetera. I actually had a little girl crying like, Oh my gosh, I can't like the mom emailed me like my daughter doesn't want to come to music anymore.

And I was like, Oh, for goodness sakes, that's just awful. And I felt really bad, you know, but. Um, I tried to, I had her for 4th and 5th grade and I tried really hard to get her to come around but she just wouldn't. So I gave her another job where she didn't have to be in front of the other students. So if you have somebody that's really, really uncomfortable then, you know, that's, that's what you're going to do.

You're not going to force them to do this because, again, this is supposed to be. exciting and fun and engaging and you don't want them freaking out that oh my gosh now I have to perform. When we perform, we do not get up in front of the whole class. We're sitting in our spot. We stand up. We do our thing.

I give them, I have one of those little slap sticks that goes Action. And they get to slap the slapstick and they do their thing and they're so excited because usually they've worked really hard on it and they're very excited to show it off. And then you're going to send it out so that and and you're going to make them aware, listen, I am sending this to your teacher.

And the teacher is going to send it on to the adults that take care of you at home, or the adult that takes care of you at home. Finally, step number five. You are going to give the classroom teacher any Notes that were taken and again you want to make the students aware of this when we are writing our sticky notes When we are brainstorming anything that gets written down Anything that my I was very blessed to have Chromebooks in my book in my bookshelf classroom, like a class set of Chromebooks, which was awesome.

But most schools, I shouldn't say most schools, if you have a class set of Chromebooks, then have the students bring them along, use those Google Sheets that you can share. But one way or the other, you need to share the results, like all the written notes, et cetera, with the classroom teacher. First of all, to keep the students accountable.

Second, so that the teacher knows that we're not just singing and dancing and playing games in there all day long. We are doing valid learning. We are doing learning that they recognize because what they don't understand is that even when we are singing and dancing, we have specific skills we're working on, but for them, when you hand them a task, Notes that their students have done.

Then. That feels more commonplace to them. And that is a really good way of tooting your horn of, of making your program seem more valid in their eyes. And the reason that it's sometimes not is not because they don't think you're a good teacher. It's because they don't understand. They don't know what we're doing in there.

They don't know that we have standards. They truly legit don't. They have enough. that they're worrying about and enough that they are, you know, they've got so many things on their plates, so many spinning plates in the air, right? That they don't have time to know what you're doing. So don't get offended by, oh, that classroom teacher's always saying, have fun in there.

What I do is when they say, have fun, or did you have fun? I'll be like, oh, we're going to have so much fun, but we're also going to learn. The steps to the scale today. We're going to learn how to go up and we're going to learn how to go down. So I am telling my teachers all the time that this is how we do it.

So let's talk for a moment or two about some project based learning. First of all, and I will link this in the show notes. There is a platform on Google called Google Chrome Music Lab, and I am also going to tag. My friend Laleh, who is a music tech specialist. And if you need help with Google Chrome Music Lab, she would be your go to lady.

I am going to tag her, give you her email, something like that. I'll, there will be a way to get in touch with her. And because I am, I am not savvy with Chrome Music Lab, but. There is so much you can do in there to create music, to create, you know, you could, I mean, there's so many things you can do in there.

So you can do a project in Google Chrome Music Lab. You can also use a platform called BandLab. That is a public platform, but there are ways to make it private so that You know, the students do not have access to anything public. And there are also tons of other. Apps out there that you can use so you can have the students create some music, compose some music, that sort of thing.

Another thing that you can do is you can work on a parody. So this is a favorite of mine. I absolutely love doing it. You pick a song that the students know. And then you have them write new words. So I give them some thoughts about subject matter and we will decide as a class what our subject is going to be.

And then usually what I do is one group is responsible for the chorus, and then we'll have a couple of groups responsible for verses, that sort of thing. So, um, And, and then, you know, they'll usually be a bridge and an introduction and all that good stuff. So everybody gets a part and we do some modeling a couple weeks before.

So I show them the way that I like to do it. We talk about writing sentences. We're never writing music because that freaks them out. And at the end. when you get the whole thing put together, then you can say to them, Oh my gosh, do you see how this worked? And you know, you can talk through the process and be like, do you see you actually did write music even though I didn't call it music.

So that is something else that's really fun to do. Another thing you can do is you can have them write some music For or a soundscape what write some music or a soundscape for a poem you can do What the road says which is it's one of the new lessons for bigger kids I've got a lot of them in there for stories that sing too so if you love to do storybook lessons and you love to do like soundscapes or That sort of thing then that is one of the lessons that's in there for what the road says So there is a whole rundown of On how to create a soundscape, you could also pick poems and have the students do a soundscape to the poem, or they could design, you could give it, give each student or each group, I should say, a couple of lines of the poem, and they could put some percussion instruments to it or some Orif instruments, something like that.

I mean, the list goes on and on. There are so Very many things you can do to give your students some project based type learning. So that just literally scratches the surface. Here's something else you can do that. I saw another music teacher, actually the music teacher that took my place when I left my last school, where I was teaching only fourth and fifth grade, she had the students do one of those line writers.

And if you haven't seen that. Go on YouTube, I will link to one of the line writers in the show notes, but the line writers are fantastic as a way to introduce some instrumental music, some classical music, that sort of thing. So, there, there is a Star Wars one, there's, I mean there's tons of them, I can't even think of all the ones there are right now.

But, Basically, there's this little guy on a bicycle and he rides the line so that it goes along with the music. So, for example, if the music's going up, he might ride up. If the music is jumping and bouncing, he might be jumping and bouncing. It's super cool. I don't actually know how the teacher did it. My guess would be that the students drew the lines and then they took screenshots and put them together that way with the music.

And you can do that in Canva or, you know what I mean? There's a ton of ways you can do it. But that I thought was like one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And I was so excited to share it with you. You can also do, like, create a dance, create a movement pattern, do some, some yoga moves with, with music, you know, I mean, there are so, so many different things you can do.

You could do a, each group could work on a different ukulele song, each group could work on a different recorder song, kind of tie it into what you're doing and let them like create some accompaniment on the drums or something like that to go with their song. I mean, um, The list goes on and on. The really important thing when you're working on projects is to make sure that you follow that step by step guide.

So let's review that real quickly. First of all, step one, you are going to talk about how high level project based learning is and how much. responsibility they need and how much trust you have put into them and you don't want to make it like a I'm coming down on you and you better do this You want to make it like you're building them up and you're saying I have had you since kindergarten and I know you guys are awesome.

And I know that you're gonna be Ready for this level of responsibility. You know, make it a really big deal that you're doing this step to set up a structure, divide them into groups or let them choose their own group. Give them their step by step guide. And again, you will find that stories that sing.

net forward slash. guide. Give them some specific dates of when they need to be done with each step of the project and then check their work often. So that is the structure you want to set up. Step three, make sure you have a performance day that they are working towards. Step four, record The performance day and make sure you email that out to the teacher so the teacher can then email it out to the adults that take care of those students at home and then step 5 give the classroom teacher any of the notes, any of the working parts of the project that you can show them.

If you have questions, if you need suggestions, if you have something in mind and you're not sure it's going to work, email me, jeanette at storiesthatsing. net. I am so happy to help you with any of that. Have a fantastic time designing your project based learning. Tune in next week to the happy music teacher.

When we're going to be talking about seven ways to add more movement to your classroom. If you got some great tips and tidbits that are going to help you become a happy music teacher, I would be so thankful if you'd leave me a review. Thanks so much for your time. Well, that's all I have for you today.

But before I go, let me remind you. Keep learning, keep growing, and keep being fabulous you.