Creating great music lessons for kindergarten can be a challenge. Finding just the right blend of silly and serious, stillness and movement, simple but purposeful takes practice. So finding the right music lesson for the first day of kindergarten is really challenging!
How do you teach the routines and procedures they desperately need to learn, while working with their extremely short attention span?
In this blog post, I wanted to share some of the activities that I have found to teach what needs teaching that first day, while still making their first exposure to music class fun and joyful.
Before the Music Lesson: First Impressions
Classroom Setup
Before a student ever walks in the door, you will want to have a good idea of your classroom setup. I prefer to go for a fun and colorful, but simple approach. You can read all about My Minimalist Music Classroom here if you want more details.
Basically, I keep visual distractions to a minimum and pull things out as needed. One thing I love to do in my room is use velcro circles to mark my seating chart. It is color coded by row, which helps students to remember where they sit, week to week. If you are looking for a way to organize student seating and you have carpet, I highly recommend them.
Greeting Your Kindergartners at the Beginning of Class
Even if you don’t plan to do it the rest of the year, I recommend meeting your students at the door the very first time they come to your room. This is especially true for your kindergarten students. It helps you to set the tone for your class before they even step in the door. You could introduce yourself and explain how they should enter the room.
Perhaps they walk in a line, following you, until you sit in a circle on the rug. Or in my case, they should enter with a quiet voice and walking feet and find a spot to sit on. Explaining what you expect will allow them to feel comfortable and confident as you set them up for success.
Music Lessons for Kindergarten: Routines and Procedures In Disguise
Now that you’ve thought about how you want students to enter your room and what your room will look like, it’s time to talk about content. What on earth do you put in that very first music lesson for kindergarteners?
It is critical to teach rules and procedures on that first day. But HOW do you do that without having your students check out immediately? Because, trust me, their attention spans are about the length of half a song.
The trick is to make everything a fun game. Think of what kind of fun stuff you would want to do with kindergarten, what kind of stuff they would beg you to do the first day. Then find ways to stuff a mini lesson inside it.
Need some examples? No problem. I’m going to walk you through every part of my first day of school music lessons for kindergarten and you can see exactly what I mean.
My First Day of School Music Lessons for Kindergarten
Hello Song
Once students have taken a seat, I sing them my hello song. We will sing this song every week to start class, so now seems like a great time to start. I will go through and sing hello to each student to start working on learning their names.
Seating Chart and Scatter Drill
Once I have an idea of their names (I say “have an idea” because sometimes you will get the super silent one and if they don’t have names tags on you might still be guessing a little on who they are), I have them stand along the side for a moment and give them their very own special music spots.
Once all the students have been seated, we do a scatter drill. This is a marvelous idea I got from a clinician at an Orff workshop. But it was so long ago that I really do not know who. Message me if you think you might know! In the meantime I’ll try and do some sleuthing around and update as soon as I can. But here is how the activity goes.
I play the tambourine and they scamper around the room. When the tambourine stops, they freeze. Then I have them turn and look at their spot with their eyes and point with their finger. Then they have to walk back to their correct spot as I count down 5-4-3-2-1. We do it a couple times if needed. I compliment the students who are really getting it and help those who might need some extra guidance. And boom! We have a seating chart.
I honestly feel that having a seating chart from day one is a big part of how I am able to remember hundreds and hundreds of names over the years. And of course, there is the classroom management aspect. Being able to assign seats (and adjust as needed) can definitely help students focus and keep them away from distractions.
Open Shut Them – Teaching Criss Cross “Applesauce” Hands in Your Lap
Many students are already familiar with this song. And it is fun and silly. Have students act out the motions. At the end, we have a discussion about what our hands and body are supposed to do in music to show good listening.
Please know that when I say we have a discussion, I mean that I usually say one to two sentences, we practice, and we move on.
I Know a Chicken – Play an Instrument!
We all know the one thing students are aching to do form the moment they enter music class is to play an instrument. And I used to make those kids wait until MONTHS into the school year before I gave them one.
What was I thinking?! This is one of the best “carrots” that you have in your arsenal to get good behavior from your littles the first weeks of school. Use this tool!
I have recently become obsessed with most of the songs from The Laurie Berkner Band. One gem is a song called I Know a Chicken. It is all about egg shakers. And it’s awesome. And it talks about fast and slow – one of my standards for kindergarten! Yes, yes and YES!
We talk about how to treat instruments respectfully (one of our class rules). I tell the students they have to be sitting like we practiced on their correct music spot to get an egg. If a student is testing the limits, they will get lots of gentle reminders. But – if they don’t follow the rules, they will NOT get an egg. Or it may be taken from them in the middle of the activity.
Students very quickly learn that we can have tons of fun, but that I don’t mess. If I say I’m going to do something, I will follow through every time. But make sure you are very careful with these fragile young ones. It should be used as a teaching and learning opportunity, not punitive.
I almost always give students another chance if they lost their egg to try again after they realized the thing they were doing wrong.
First Day of School Book – Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes
I like to finish off with a book to bring the energy back down. My go to for kindergarteners at the beginning of the year is Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes. This book tops my list for several reasons.
First, it’s Pete the Cat. I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel like in some way, Pete the Cat is my spirit animal. But on to more substantive reasons. The first week of school is full of way more talking than the rest of the year. I have to go over rules and procedures class after class. So my voice is tired.
But this particular book comes with an online recording of the book – complete with music! I can just channel my inner Vanna White and turn pages. That is a major bonus.
Also, I love that this book talks about the way that we act differently in different areas of the school. Kids might not understand that the way you act in the lunch room is not the way that you act in the library or the music room. I usually like to redo this story again the next week and then lead a discussion about how we might act in different parts of the school.
First Day of School Music Lesson – Final Thoughts
So in conclusion, you can see that every activity that I have for the first day teaches one part of the rules and procedures they will need to know. It has playing, listening, singing and moving.
But one thing that you might notice that is absent is getting up and moving around the room. Okay, we did do it a little during the scatter drill. But I purposely avoid locomotor movement the first day. I have a whole set of rules we use when moving around the room, and we will learn those three rules in week two. It’s just too much overload for week one and doesn’t set anyone up for success.
I hope you found my lesson plan rundown helpful and found some things that you might use in your own classroom. If you do, make sure to reach out to me and let me know which ones you ended up using in your own music lessons for kindergarten. I can’t wait to hear!
More Kindergarten and Back to School Resources
First let’s start off with a blog post from Carpe Diem Music, all about – puppets! Puppets are a GREAT way to get kids out of their shell and focused on the music concept at hand. Check out her post – 11 Genius Puppet Music Activities Your Elementary Music Students Have Been Missing.
If the beginning of the year is stressing you out and you are lying awake making lists of all the things you need to do to prep your room, then maybe I can take a little work off your plate.
My Back to School Music Classroom Decor Bundle has everything you need to make your music class look amazing (while still being super functional). Things like a vocabulary wall, instrument labels, Orff mallet technique posters and more. Plus some fun ice breaker activities for starting off the year with your older students.
Or if you are looking for more music lessons for kindergarten, you might be interested in my unit on teaching voice types. Learning about singing, speaking, whispering and shouting voices is a standard in many of the states I have taught in. This unit is meant to be taught in the fall and uses fun, cute seasonal songs and activities to help your students find their singing voice.
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