Children love to move a lot since they are bursting with energy. You can keep them focused and interested in your lessons by using Action Songs and Educational Music Games. Action songs are very popular especially to toddlers and children. Here are a few simple ways that you can use Educational Music Games in the Classroom with Action Songs.

1. Use action songs as motivation. When they start the lesson do a couple of songs that they know straight away. A warm up like this will get preschool children moving and ready for the rest of the lesson.

2. Use your action songs all day, in many different subject areas. There are educational music games that help kids learn about the parts of the body, be familiar with the letters of the alphabet, and even name shapes.

3. Use Educational Music Games as a replacement from traditional worksheets or tests. Since they are in the form of music, they are easier to remember and even memorized. Your activities will be enriched and enhanced by engaging in games as part of your lessons.

4. Action songs can develop your children’s imagination and creativity. Children can do amazing things when asked to creatively come up with actions for a song. They also develop their attitudes of cooperation, patience, and helpfulness.

By using some of these action songs in the classroom, hopefully you can improve the chances of Music Theory being popular with the students.

Sue Henshce is a preschool and elementary school expert, and a Mother. She also works in an informal role as an advisor and editor for the Fun Music Company in working on their Elementary Music Worksheets and their Educational Music Games for young children.

Would this product be suitable for one on one studio lessons?
Of course! Some of the products are more suitable than others, for instance Musical Terms for the Digital Age is highly appropriate for private studio teachers preparing students for theory exams.
We have tried to make instant print music lessons universally adaptable to a wide variety of teaching situations, including private studios.
Are there any copyright restrictions in using Music Theory Fun Sheets?
We ask that you agree to our terms of our license agreement the first time you visit the members area. The license agreement simply gives you the ability to use and print out the worksheets for teaching your classes, but you cannot distribute, sell or otherwise share it.
This is simple common sense – we have avoided placing unnecessary restrictions as we trust that teachers will exercise discretion when using the materials.
I’m not really a music teacher, but would love to use the worksheets- would they be suitable for a teacher who is a beginner in teaching music?
We have tried to make the worksheets as “beginner friendly” as possible, so that they can be used by fill-in or relief teachers if necessary. They all include answered versions, and as much as possible no musical knowledge should be required to give them to a class.
Can I get teaching advice and help? Are there any lesson plans and ideas I can check to go with Music Theory Fun Sheets?
The Fun Music Company is working on creating a lot of resources for music teaching, through this and several other sites. You’ll find a lot of free resources at www.musicteachersblog.com
Can I contribute some feedback on the product to be included in the next revision?
We love to hear your feedback, ideas and suggestions. Simply contact us via the Fun Music Company helpdesk and we’ll be in touch.
Can I buy the Music Theory Fun Sheets package as a printed version?
At the moment Music Theory Fun Sheets is only available as a digital self-print product. However we are looking into making a printed version available soon.
What other products does the fun music company have and where can I find them?
The Fun Music Company has a range of other products for Music Education, both for classroom music teachers and studio music teachers. Please visit www.funmusicco.com to check out the full range.

Submitted by Leslie Cheyne

Submitted by Jessie Magoffin

Encourage the students to pretend that they are Prince Esterhazy, and that they are looking for a new Kapellmeister. Ask them to write a job advertisement outlining the duties of the position and the type of person you are looking for. Encourage them to write down details of the Esterhaza palace where the applicant will live and work.

Stretch the classes imagination and pretend that T.V. talk shows existed in the 18th century. Have the students pretend they are an interviewer and they are interviewing Haydn after one of his successful tours of London. Talk about a concert, the people Haydn met, Haydn’s opinion of the current fashion trends and anything else of interest. Don’t forget that Haydn was known for his great wit! This could be done as a class discussion, or you could break off into small groups to do the activity.

Another activity is to have the students research the 18th Century ‘Symphony’. Include information on the standard instrumentation (instruments used), the number of movements and any other interesting facts. Have them find out which other composers wrote symphonies.

Build “note pizzas” by giving 6 groups each a set of a Pizza pan and 1 whole note (whole pizza) 2 half notes (half pizzas) 4 quarter notes (quarter pizzas) and 8 eighth notes (eighth pizzas). They had to cooperatively build pizzas with any arrangement of the notes, and 1 member of the group was a recorder. There are 10 possible pizzas to come up with, and to make it more complicated you could add the same size pizzas slices as rests. We rewarded the first 2 teams who came up with 10 correctly recorded results packs of pringle pizza sticks but you don’t really need a reward. It took about 25 minutes for all the results to be handed in.

Submitted by Marta Mcguire

Listening List and other resources for learning about Mozart in the music class.

Mozart Requiem Mass in D Minor Confutatis and Lacrimosa

Piano Concerto no. 21 2nd movement: Andante

Eine kleine Nachtmusik: Allegro

Symphony no 40 in g minor: 1st movement

Jean Honore Fragonard: A Young Girl Reading

This can be used especially when working on timbre…in older grades the students have brought in their band instruments….and we use a brass, woodwind, string and percussion instrument for the 4 sounds!

Discuss with students the similarities and differences among keyboard instruments. The keyboard instruments are related to each other in that they are controlled by a similarly laid-out key mechanism. However if we are to be technical about it each of these instruments really belongs in a different family.

The harpsichord and the piano are string instruments (chordophones). The harpsichord mechanism plucks the strings while the piano mechanism strikes the strings.

The pipe organ is actually a series of wind instruments (aerophones). Some pipes operate like a flute, other pipes operate like a whistle or recorder, and yet other pipes operate like a reed instrument.

The keyboard on the celesta plays bells, just like the Glockenspiel, hence why it can be called a “bell piano”

Here are some other observations: the piano and the celesta have a single manual (row of keys), whereas some harpsichords and virtually all organs have multiple manuals. Pianos and organs have a very wide range while harpsichords and celestas have a more limited range.