Music in Our Schools Month

As you probably know, March is Music In our Schools Month.  There are many March activities I love to do to show students, staff and parents why music in our schools is so important.

Here are just a few of those ideas:

Bulletin Board:  This year I have a bulletin board that is split into thirds.  One third has our typical music schedule- concerts, musicals, other events in the district, etc as well as my monthly music newsletter.

The next third is advocacy facts and quotes about why music is important.  There are quotes from Plato, Nelson Mandela, President Ford and others as well as facts from the Grammy Association about how music increases test scores, graduation rates, etc.  

For the final third I asked my 5th and 6th grade students why music matters to them and posted some of the answers on the board.  There were a lot of great answers.

Announcements:  I am also doing a weekly feature on the morning video announcements about composers, facts about music in our school, or just a fun song/ dance. 6th graders made videos in their Library class earlier this year so I hope to have the Media Specialist show some of those on the announcements as well.   I may even survey teachers about their musical identity and have students guess for raffle prizes at the end of the month.   My Glee and Orff students are really eager to help out with these short video spots and I hope to get some younger students involved too.


Check out the  National Association For Music Education website as well for many more great ideas and for ways to participate in this very important month! http://musiced.nafme.org/events/music-in-our-schools-month/