This was also posted on my blog at http://www.yetthereismethod.net/
Whenever I can, I like to incorporate music into my classroom routine. I’ve only had limited success with music to teach content (trust me, it’s me and not the students…I’m working on it), but I enjoy playing music to brighten the classroom climate. My go-to music is Kidz Bop. I don’t think I could play many of the original songs with students, but the kid-friendly covers are well done.
Perhaps my favorite time to turn on the tunes is when the class is practicing cursive writing. The students are sort of on autopilot (we’ve had the instruction, now we’re just refining letter and word formation) and things are pretty casual.
This morning was great. As hard as it is to believe, I had just about everyone engaged (yes, you can go to the restroom) and the class was sort of collectively swaying to the beat and singing along. If it wouldn’t have messed up the morning (and rightly so), I would have done the “hit pause” trick just to hear those few seconds of uninhibited singing along.
In my early years of teaching, a mere ten years ago, I got along with folk tunes (really…Peter, Paul, and Mary were classroom favorites), but in this day of YouTube and streaming audio the students don’t really go for that anymore. That’s okay, I suppose; I can adapt. To quote The Who, “The kids are alright!”
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Word nerd note: For fun, take a look at the “all right” versus “alright” discussions at the various credible grammar sites. Interesting reading.
Yet There is Method 