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.

The Kodaly concept of music uses a child-developmental approach, and it introduces the skills in harmony with the capabilities of the children. In this approach, the children are first introduced to the concepts of music through various experiences such as singing, listening, or movement. Only after the child becomes familiar with the concept of music, he or she learns how to compose it. Most of the successful music lesson plans are based on this method.

The Kodaly Concepts are constantly reviewed in regular intervals; and they are reinforced through various methods such as movement, games, songs and exercises.

The Kodaly Method incorporates the use of the rhythmic movement, which is a technique that is inspired by works of a Swiss music educator, known as Emile Jaques Dalcroze. In order to reinforce the various rhythmic concepts, the Kodaly method uses a wide variety of rhythmic movements, such as running, walking, marching, and clapping. All these activities need to be performed at the time of listening to the music or while singing.

The concept was explained to the children with the help of the traditional educational music games of that time. According to the researches and studies, it has been proved that the Kodaly Method improves the rhythm skills, intonation, music literacy and the aptitude to sing in progressively more complex parts.

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Like it or not, music students are going to have to face the fact that there is no other choice but to sit down with a pencil in the hand and make the music theory study happen.

A search for “music theory” on twitter every day will show you how students feel about preparing for music theory assessments and doing music theory homework. This is a very enlightening thing for a teacher to do, as you really do get a concept of how the students are feeling about the subject.

There is no real reason for the students to dislike learning music theory. Personally I find that music theory is a very satisfying activity in itself, and I find that I enjoy sitting down with a pencil and paper and working out a harmony exercise. I find that one of the best ways that I can get the students inspired about music theory is to share my enthusiasm for the subject. If I am enthusiastic about music theory, then the students will be as well.

But what do you say when the student comes to their lesson, and their music theory worksheet is not done, and its been happening over and over?

Well there is no value in taking privileges away from them – or trying to somehow “punish” them for not doing it, as this will just make the activity more negative in the student’s mind.

There is also not a great value in Extrinsic rewards, like sticker charts or stars, as this might work in the short term, but not really in the long term. The only thing that really will work is getting the student to enjoy the activity for the activity’s sake.

If students can enjoy music theory for what it is, then they will find doing music theory worksheets a breeze!

One of the interesting lesson plans in preschool education is their music lessons. Preschool music lesson plans need to be designed in a way that it instills a passion and liking for this art form among the children.

Many fun activities can be organized in the class to use up one’s creativity, and this can be included in the preschool music lesson plan. The teacher should also incorporate some fun and very easy junior music worksheets into their classes.

The music teacher needs to have immense patience while designing lesson plans for the little ones. Everyone knows that the most important thing with preschool kids is that they just have fun, and if they learn something then that is a bonus. Parents at home must also contribute to sustain this passion for music in their children. One of the most effective ways to give musical exposure to children is at their bedtime. The lights are dim, and nothing is distracting the child. Soft and pretty classical music can be chosen to play at night as the children drop off to sleep.

In this way you can make listening to quality classical music part of the child’s day, and instill a love for music that can’t be taken away. This is something a child will definitely look forward to and enjoy if practiced often. Keep it varied by mixing some new and different music with the music that the child is familiar with every night. The child will be more involved and more engaged if the music is not always the same, and they’ll be able to go to sleep faster and have a more complete sleep.

Young children learn to talk through listening and experimenting, children learn to take to their choice of music too by listening and experimenting. It is important to place the children in an environment that invites them to learn. Let music find its way into the children’s lives as much as possible, and then they will grow up to be healthy, happy, well adjusted adults.

A lesson plan doesn’t have to be complex, and teachers who have been in the game a while can do it almost without thinking, however they always have to be prepared with something ready to do in their lessons.

In our area of music there are a few tips that make elementary classes much more fun, both for the students and the teacher.

1. Mix up the activities

There is a saying that goes “Too much of a good thing….”, and in teaching is is very apt! Even if the children love a particular game or song they will eventually lose interest in it, so make sure you stop while they are still liking it and move onto a new one.

2. Keep the activities short and sweet

Short 5-10 minute activities are always best, depending on what you are doing of course. In a general music/singing lesson at elementary level you would normally start with a song or two, break it up with some percussion or rhythm work and them move onto another song and maybe a game at the end.

3. Break up the routine with something unexpected!

Its definitely a good thing to keep the students guessing about what they might expect next! You should always keep some stability of course, but you may wish to break it up by heading out to the playground for a lesson with some games, or visiting another class to sing them a song. If you do this every now and then and it works for you students might start really loving your classes!

4. Have a surprise around every corner

Young children especially love getting a surprise! You can mix up your rewards by suddenly picking out one student and giving them a reward for singing well or playing nicely. Incentive schemes always work, but mix it with surprises and you’ll find they’ll respond even better.

Don’t call it “work” – its a “game”!

You can call just about any activity a “game” and approach it as such, it’ll become much more fun! So for example if you’re going to do some theory, just say: “Lets go and do some games on the board over here.” You’ll be amazed at the difference one small change to the way you describe it makes!

6.Keep plenty in reserve

As a teacher you always need to plan more activities than you’ll ever need for every lesson. You can always have a bunch of simple music theory worksheets copied and ready if you need them, and learn a couple of songs that you know will work every time.

Hopefully some of these ideas will help you make your elementary music lesson plans fun and enjoyable for your students.

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.

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!