Read a Book, Sing a Song

Pairing Songs and Books can Increase Literacy. Here are five ways songs can enhance reading time in your classroom.

Boost Literacy with singing and reading!

Pairing Songs and Books to Increase Literacy

Last Tuesday we celebrated Read Across America Day, and March is Reading Month! As we celebrate the power of literacy this month, let’s include the power of music to enhance literacy and promote reading.

We know that music can enhance the building blocks for language and literacy development (see Liz Buchanan’s post, Making Musical Links with Literacy and my earlier post, Music and Literacy: Connecting Music to the “Big Five” Reading Skills. Music both prepares children for learning to read, and supports them as they continue their reading journey.

Pairing your reading time with a well placed song, can truly enhance your reading time with your children. Here are some thoughts and tips for pairing songs with your favorite books:

1. Use songs as a transition for reading time.

A well placed song can help transition children from one activity to another. This can especially be helpful when setting up routines for reading time. Transitioning between activities is often a time when children act out which in turn impact the flow for other students creating a cascade of increasing chaos and eventually cutting into precious instructional time. Using music can set a rhythm and direct movement so that children can navigate the shift efficiently. Here is a great list of suggestions for a “transition to reading” song.

2. Music and movement can help get the wiggles out.

Music and movement can be an excellent tool for allowing children to get their wiggles out before sitting and concentrating on a book. This can be especially helpful for young learners who have trouble focusing for longer periods of time. Movements that cross the midline also can serve as a brain-readiness tool, preparing the student for learning. Here some great movement songs and also here form preschool classrooms!

3. Use songs to reinforce key academic vocabulary

Academic vocabulary is key when introducing new books and concepts. Songs containing important vocabulary words can be an excellent and creative way to present new words to your students. For example, if your plan is to read My Father’s Dragon, a wonderful story of young Elmer who sets off to on an adventure in order to free a dragon, playing the song No Fire Dragon by Liz Buchanan would be a good pairing. Searching lyrics for key vocabulary words or even sight words can be a powerful way to reinforce learning.

4. Songs can help create context and add to comprehension.

Selecting songs related to a theme can also be a great way to set context and add to comprehension of the book. For example, since My Father’s Dragon is a book about an adventure where Elmer meets other wild animals, Jungle Safari by Music, Movement & Magination or the classic, Bear Hunt are two great choices to sing before reading a book about an adventure. You can play the song, then start a discussion about what one might need for the journey.

5. A carefully selected song can deepen learning.

Pairing a song for your extension activities can be a great way to deepen the learning. Using the same example, your class can sing the song Going On An Adventure by Two of a Kind and then begin crafting their own stories. Or select the books referenced in the song for their free reading time.

Books and music can go hand in hand in your classroom to creatively engage and enhance reading time and build literacy! Have fun pairing songs to your books and if you get stuck we often provide suggestions!

Using Valentine’s Day for Social Emotional Learning

Candy Hearts for teachers

Valentine’s Day can be a day of delight for some and a day of disaster for others. While it is supposed to be a day devoted to love, many children often feel strong feelings of rejection, jealousy and loneliness. Not to mention the awkward situations that arise confusing romantic love and friendship. What’s a teacher to do in order to be inclusive and socially responsible? Stressing the concepts of friendship, kindness, and service, educators can use Valentine’s Day (or week) to for character and social-emotional skill building.

Consider Nixing the Valentine’s Exchange Altogether

The bags are decorated, the children arrive with their Valentine’s cards in hand, and you’ve required they give a Valentine to each person in their class. What could go wrong? Invariably, someone goes home hurt. Suzie feels bad because she left her Valentines at home; Jarod got 17 cards and Maria only got 15; Hannah received a “special card” from Sarah but Monica just got a regular one. Kyle teases Max because he signed his cards Love, Max. Mark feels left out because his family doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s day, and Tony’s family couldn’t afford the cool store bought pack.

While some parents may object, canceling the card exchange altogether and focusing on key character skills may provide the right balance for all. Here are some suggestions to frame Valentine’s Day in a positive inclusive light.

Create Community

Create a strong sense of school community by celebrating the unsung heroes at your school. The janitors, front office staff, lunch servers, playground monitors often work hard to make a school function and yet get so little appreciation for their contributions. Make a list of the support staff at your school and all the important jobs that are involved in making a school successful. Then, have the children work in groups to write letters, make crafts or small gifts of appreciation for the hard work these people do. Get creative and create a bulletin board in your room for each group with photos and information about each worker and how they make the school a better community.

Focus on Friendship

Building social skills is a key objective throughout the year, but adding a special unit on Friendship during Valentine’s week may be a great strategy to focus the holiday’s energy without all the drama and heartache. Brainstorm with your class the important characteristics of a good friendship (mutual respect, accepting differences, sharing, kindness, empathy, shared experiences, etc). Then create one activity each day of the week to address these skills. One of my favorite is to create “friendship hearts” by having students complete the sentence “I Can Be a Friend By…” on cardstock hearts. Let the students share their answers and decorate the room with their friendship hearts. This idea and others can be found here!

Friendship Heart

Enhance Empathy

Valentine’s Day can be used to address the specific skill of building empathy. Showing care and compassion are critical in building and maintaining relationships, and teaching empathy is a year long goal. But highlighting this skill on Valentine’s Day can really give some oomph to your SEL goals. The cornerstones of empathy are taking perspective of others and a shared emotional response. Check out this article on proven strategies to teach empathy and here are some great resources to get you started.

Stress Service

Scheduling a service learning project during the week of Valentine’s Day can pack a lot more punch that stuffing decorated sacks with Valentines. Whether it is a service project for your classroom, school or neighborhood community, service learning projects build citizenship, engender teamwork, instill problem solving, and nurture leadership skills. Service learning projects do take planning and include identifying a need, exploring possible solutions, finding resources, executing the project, and evaluating effectiveness. Examples can include holding a book drive for a classroom library, creating a bully awareness assembly for your grade level, planting a school garden, or plan a community trash clean up day at a nearby park. Here is a great article with some excellent Service Learning Projects!

Bring on the Music!

Here are some great resources for you to enhance your classroom during Valentine’s Week:

Damos Gracias!

Strive for a more socially responsible Thanksgiving

Damos Gracias

I’ve been cleaning out closets this past week and found an old photo album of when my children were in preschool (they are all in their late twenties and early thirties now). I found photos of their preschool thanksgiving celebration complete with pilgrim hats and feathered headdresses. . . CRINGE! It was uncomfortable for me to see these photos and how we had reinforced hurtful stereotypes and an inaccurate historical depiction of Thanksgiving. (To understand more, read this Time Magazine article).

In an effort to become more socially responsible, here are some suggestions for your classroom or home celebrations.

  1. Select books written by Native authors that reduce stereotypes, honor the diversity of different tribes, and remind us that Native peoples are still here today. Here is an incredible resource from American Indians in Children’s Literature (AICL) and also American Indian Library Association’s 2020 Awards.


2. Focus on Gratitude, Damos Gracias! Simply asking students or family members about the things for which they are grateful moves the focus of this holiday to that of mindfulness and social-emotional health. Discussing how various families and cultures express gratitude is a culturally responsive take on this theme. Here is a great article on Fostering Gratitude.


3. Focus on Family. Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to gather and express love to our family members (those that are close and those who are far away). It is also a great time to explore cultural difference among families. Teachers, please be sensitive to children who do come from “traditional” families.


4. Focus on Food. Many of the traditional foods for Thanksgiving are made with indigenous foods: turkey, corn, beans, pumpkins, maple, wild rice and the like. When you expand the conversation to explore the many family traditions that exist around preparing and eating food together, conversations become much more rich.


5. Other Ideas . . .

6. Oh yeah. . .and don’t forget the music!


Resources:

Back to School Tips in an Uncertain World

back to school

My Facebook feed has been filled with those cute back to school photos this week as many schools open up after a year and a half of tumultuous schooling. While the CDC is authorizing in person learning, they are still recommending (as of July 9th) layered prevention strategies of masking and distancing in schools. And so we know, based on the last two years, that things can change in an instant (making teachers the most flexible essential workers out there), and therefore we move forward in world of uncertainty.

Uncertainty can take its toll, and I believe we have seen that over the past year and half. It can rob us, and our children, of our natural joy. So, I say bring joy back into your lives! Teachers, bring joy back into the classroom! What better way to do that than with music!!

Uncertainty . . . can rob us, and our children, of our natural joy. So, I say bring joy back into your lives!

Here are 9 tips for bringing joy-filled music into your classroom!

Covid 19 songs

1. COVID 19 Songs Download songs to help motivate the children in your classroom to wear a mask, distance and wash hands. There are some great tunes about caring for your community and encouraging children to stay safe during these uncertain times. 

2. Morning and End of Day Routine Songs —Morning routine songs and end of the day songs can help define these chaotic times. Playing an up-beat hello song as the children come in the door can set a tone for a positive, productive day. Once the children understand their tasks, challenge the children to finish their jobs and be in their seats by the end of the song. Same for the end of the day routine. Kids will sing along and happily get ready to go in a timely fashion.​​​​​​​

3. Transition Songs —As you plan out your daily schedule think about ways to transition your students from one activity to another. We have countless transition songs tailored just for this purpose — everything from going to art class, lining up, starting a math unit, or going to the bathroom.Putting movement to these transition songs (marching, fist pumps, crossing the midline, etc) has the added benefit of providing a Brain Break for the learners and helps reduce learning fatigue.

4. Set up a Listening Station —A listening station can be used as a part of a rotation of centers or it can be a place where kids can go to when their seat work is done. This can be powerful when using content driven music. Align the playlist for different units or themes in the classroom to reinforce topics covered in class. One tip is to plan for songs that match the current literature study, or your current social studies, science or math unit. As the year goes on, you can tailor this station to the differentiated needs of your students.

5. Substitute Teacher Playlist —Creating a playlist just for subs can serve as a great tool for the substitute. The kids will be engaged and it might help reduce some of the classic shenanigans that go on when the teacher is away! Again, using content based songs, you can reinforce topics you are learning in class. In your sub instructions, simply tell the teacher when to play each song. You might even want to designate a student to teach the substitute teacher the movements!

6. Mindfulness, Growth Mindset & Social Justice Songs — Mindfulness allows for children to be in tune with their body and their feelings and how one can, in turn, become empathetic and mindful of others. Planning for a few minutes of centering each day with songs that sooth, encourage or teach self awareness can create an environment for social-emotional learning.

Growth Mindset is based on the belief that children can always grow and learn – that learning is not limited or fixed. When students believe they can get smarter, they understand that effort makes them stronger and therefore they are motivated to take on challenges. Songs that encourage positivity and character can help teachers create an environment of persistence so that kids see effort as the path toward mastery.

Social justice issues have been in the forefront of society these past few years. Carefully crafted children’s songs addressing social justice issues such as diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism can help children understand these concepts based on their developmental level. 

7. Plan for Upcoming Holidays —Once the year starts, it is amazing how quickly it goes. Before you know it, it will be Halloween, then Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, then the winter holidays! Sometimes these holidays can catch up on you by surprise. You can switch up your routine or transition music with holiday songs or create a playlist for a party. (We have some great streaming apps that do just the trick!). Looking for a good song for a school performance? We have several for holidays or by topic that come with instrumental tracks or sheet music for performing.

8. Perform a Musical — We have musicals for just about every content area. They are easy to use, easily adaptable,  and don’t require any theatrical experience. Plus, it is a whole lot of fun! You kids will love it and your parents will too!

9. Don’t Forget Music for Your Specials! Surf around SongsForTeaching.com and find all kinds of music for just about anything you want to teach in your classroom!