Relay Races in the General Music Classroom

Relay Races are a great way to get kids up and moving to review ANY musical subject.

I do relay races to review rhythms, solfege, vocabulary, lines and spaces on the staff and more.

Not only do gets get up and moving in a relay race, but it is a great way to secretly individually assess students while they are having fun.  

For ANY type of relay race it is always fun to have the students race in different ways- Mine love to bear crawl, crab walk, tip toe, skip and more.

Here are some of the relay races I have done recently:

Staff Relay Races: Students use cups (or plates) to spell words on our large floor staff.  If you do not have a large floor staff, just make on with tape!  I say a word and the first person on the relay team places the cup on the first letter of the word, then races back to their team and second person moves the cup to the second letter and so on.  My 6th graders had so much fun with this!


Rhythm (or solfege) Relay Races:  These can be done in a few ways-
Have rhythm cards at the end of the room across from each team.  Teacher reads a card, and then the students race to find the correct card then back to their team.  Then the teacher reads another.  2nd level of this version would be teacher reads a succession of cards and the 1st student in line finds the first card, 2nd in line finds the 2nd card, etc.  Don't want to make all the rhythm cards? Check out this set from Lindsay's Kodaly Inspired Classroom on TPT: Wild Rhythm Races Bundled Set  She has other sets for various seasons too- so fun! She has her students use scooters to race to the rhythms and back! In the picture below you can see my kids ready to ride, and in the corner is one groups rhythm cards all mixed up.  I said a rhythm and they had to race down and find it.

You could also have students race to a sight-reading page and have to read examples from the page. The first group to complete the page wins.

In addition to the racing, sometimes it is fun to have the students complete another task before they can race back to their team for the next person to go.  I saw on facebook last week that a teacher had her class do bottle flipping relays.  Once they got the bottle to stand up they raced to a sight-reading page and read an example then raced back to their team.  This idea is so great because so many students get in trouble for bottle flipping anyways-  we might as well turn it into something productive. :)

Also- while it is not really a relay race persay, My students love Rhythm Football.  A student from each team races to get the rhythm (or solfa) card called to their endzone first.  Check out more about this game HERE and you can get the rhythm card sets HERE.

Side note: If you aren't in the Elementary Music Teachers group on facebook- you should be.  Other great groups are Kodaly Educators, and I'm a General Music Teacher.  Check them out!


Vocab Relay Races: For Vocab relay races in my room students have to build a 3-tier vocab tower.  Word, Symbol, and Definition.   I give a word or show a symbol and then they have to find the correct tower pieces in a pile at the other end of the room.  The towers to not have to be built in any specific order, so the first student can pull ANY of the 3 pieces from their pile, the 2nd only has two left and the 3rd student has the hardest job of figuring out what piece of the tower is missing.  For these I use my Vocab Stacking Sets on TPT. There is a Spring Set which I will be using soon as well as a snowman set, a jack-o-lantern set, a heart set and a back-2-school set.  Check them all out HERE

Fly Swatter Game: Each of these games also has the symbols printed on LARGE pieces so you can play the fly swatter game with your classes.

For the fly-swatter game, you post one set of pictures on the board and then students in different teams race to swat the correct word or symbol first.  Sometimes I say the word, sometimes I say the definition, and they have to swat the symbol.  SO FUN!

There are also instruments of the orchestra versions of all of these games in my TPT store-  the same races would work really well!  Check those out HERE


Have you done relay races in your room?

Musical Toys- Great for the Elementary General Music Classroom

Now that my kiddo is 15 months, I have a lot of toys around.  My family thinks, because I am a music teacher, I want ALL the musical baby toys.  Some are awesome for Henry and some of them, I have found, are AWESOME for all ages and I want to bring them into my classroom for centers, whole class learning and more.

Here are 2 of my favorites- that don't even look TOO toddler-y so I think they would be an easy sell to the kids.

Munchkin Music Cube
Wow- I LOVE this cube (and so does Henry).  It is a 6 sided instrument cube.  The sides are Orchestra, French Horn, Flute, Violin, Harp, and Piano.  When you touch a side, that instrument plays a Mozart Song.  If you touch two sides- both instruments play.  You can start and stop a side at any moment to hear different arrangements of the Mozart Songs.   If you want to hear the whole orchestra, you can touch all the instruments OR just touch the orchestra side.  It is so fun to hear the instruments isolated and then in different groupings.  Very cool for teaching instruments of the orchestra, texture and more.

Giant Step and Play Piano
This one I saw at a friends house and really wish I had my own.  I love that you can play around and then record and playback your composition. This would be awesome for centers on orchestral instruments, texture, and even solfege and rhythm.

Description from the Target Website: 
This GIANT vinyl keyboard provides hours and hours of big musical fun! It features 8 instrument sounds and 4 different play modes, including a demo mode. Choose from piano, saxophone, violin, accordion, trumpet, harp, xylophone, and guitar sounds to create your own musical masterpiece. Test the sounds in Play mode, then record your tune and use the playback feature to share it with family and friends!


Do you have any favorite toys that you use in your music room? 

Building Rapport in the Music Room

Everybody knows that if students feel loved and safe and like their teacher truly cares about them, they will usually behave better- listening more, being more respectful to the teacher and other classmates, and generally have a much happier time in your classroom.  Trying to teach a kid who feels unwelcome or that you "hate them" will do nothing for that child OR you.  They will just be grumpy and disruptive and there will be no real learning that takes place which in turn can make other students or you grumpy. Winter and Spring are the perfect times to reinforce to students that you care about THEM and not just drilling your subject- whatever it may be.

I have gone back to the basics recently to help continue to build that rapport with my students, and maybe help build their character in the process.

1. Greet students at the door. Be sure you are present as they enter and say hello to EACH student! This can go a long way for students knowing they are loved.  Maybe even make a secret handshake with each class - or even those students you know need something extra.  Also be sure to say bye when they leave! Give high-fives, smiles, etc.

2.  Board-work.  This is not your typical board-work though.  My students have to travel from the main building to my "modular" classroom so they end up arriving at slightly different times from each other.  As upper grades walk in, I have a grid on the board with numbers in each box.  Sometimes students are to write their name in a box, then randomly pick another number and think of a compliment to give that person.  Other times they have to answer a question in a box.  Questions include- "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "What is your favorite music to listen to" "What is your favorite subject in school?" "How can you change the world for the better?" and more.  I always answer the questions as well.  While often this is not inherently musical, I have noticed that students love to tell me about themselves- their hopes and dreams- and then they are more focused during class after having time to just talk and share. Even if it's only 3 minutes at the beginning of class, we are learning more about each other and having fun. Check out more ideas in my "30 Day Happy Teaching Challenge" In the Classroom FUN section.

3. Musical Warm-ups.  With younger grades, I often sing the questions that I would ask the older kids as part of our musical warm-up.  I only ask a few each week, but keep the same question until all have been asked.

4. Paying attention to students interests and adding them to class.  This could mean sight-reading a pop-song you know students like with known pitches, reading rhythms with video game or movie character names (Batman for ti-ti, Thor for ta, etc.), writing parodies of pop songs, or adding technology into lessons.  Today, we even changed the words of "Canoe Song" To be about John Cena and Lebron James.  I just made sure they kept the rhythm EXACTLY the same- which was a challenge for them! isleoftune.com, incredibox.com, and even the use of robots, like dash or ozobots, can hook those kids who are super techy.  Using these websites- I set parameters so students are still working on concepts we are working on in class.

5. Read stories and listen to music that can spark some awesome discussion about kids interests, taking care of each other, and even big topics like bullying, self-esteem, and following your dreams.  If a big discussion starts, let it happen! Sometimes we get so caught up in teaching our content, we miss out on these awesome teaching and discussion moments! Some great choices are: Don't Laugh at Me, or songs from I am BullyProof Music.

~BONUS IDEAS!~

6. Send home notes/ emails/ post cards.  Kids LOVE getting snail mail! I love sending positive notes home to students when they have done something awesome in class. I get post cards with our mascot and keep them on my desk so that I am ready to write one at all times.  I also love to hand out "brag tags" directly to students when they are super singers, helpers, or are just being awesome in another way.

7. Post what you are reading and ask kids what their favorites are! Reading is how I recharge after a long day and it is so fun to read favorite books of students.  It helps me get to know them better and they love seeing me post their favorites on my "What I am Reading" board.  Get one here (It is an editable powerpoint file with a few different colors to choose from!) I even had a kid last year recommend a book a week before Spring Break started (and I knew I would be on maternity leave after Spring Break) and he was so excited about it, he brought his own copy for me to read.  OF COURSE I read it and brought it back by the time the week was up!