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For high and middle school I can stick them with book work, or ignore them entirely and encourage them to find another elective. But in elementary, particularly 4th and 5th, the kids that don't want to be there really suck. Conventional wisdom tells me to make the classes as fun as possible, but what do you do with a kid that asks "do I have to be here?" or actively disrupts a bucket drumming circle with wildly wrong rhythms. I take away their drumsticks but that's kinda what they want!
For context I'm starting a brand new K-12 program at a very rural district that hasn't had a program in 6 years. Elementary has been an afterthought this year so I've had six weeks with K-1, six with 2-3, and now I'm on week five of six with 4-5.
Next year I'll see 4th and 5th once a week every week. I'm pretty sure I've lost the battle this year but I am looking for advice to make next year more productive!
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1- does your school have a code of conduct? Follow that for class disruptions. If admin push back, equate the behavior to shouting during silent reading. It’s auditory noise and a distraction.
2- Equate it to work in their other classes. They get a grade for music right? I tell them I GRADE EVERYTHING. Yes how you sit, posture effects your singing. If you’re talking you’re not listening to the music/singing/etc. I can find a way to make this work for literally everything. We’re singing a song? Grading it. Patting along with a song we’ve never heard before? Grading it. My pencil is in my hand and I give points and take points constantly.
3- if your admin is worthless, have a backup ready. I went full “Mom is mad. Like threaten to throw all your toys away if you don’t clean them up mad”. On 5th grade this year and came up with alternative, not fun written work for them for 3 months. They hated it, I hated it, but there was peace in the classroom. I’ve just now started to loosen the reins and let them have a little bit of fun again.
Wow you're making me realize my school culture SUCKS. Kids don't care about grades and restorative justice is in full effect. Again, I only had these kids for one semester this year so I will surely start out much tougher next year! Thanks for the input.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in Restorative Justice. When it’s done right. I give kids every opportunity to earn their points. Some kids I know stop singing as soon as they know I’m looking, so I always look with my peripheral vision.
I teach in a high trauma school. All those buzz word approaches are rooted in something good. I take the good for myself and throw away the rest.
Basically it’s tough love.
You think restorative justice is bad??? Why are you teaching if you don't believe that people can learn and become better??? That's... Extremely Frightening for our future that we have teachers that would think of "restorative justice" as a negative. Is it possible that you don't know what it is, didn't consider what the words mean, and have taken some weird policy at your school to be "restorative justice" without actually researching what that is? (Another thing that would worry me about your teaching, I very much doubt you would skip that basic of a step, right?)
Thanks for the clarification!
Students in this age range often don't value making music as a recreational activity. They will listen to music all day if you let them, but making it is hard and they often can't connect what you're teaching to what they already like about music.
I might start a bucket drumming unit by putting on some (school appropriate) music that most will know and like. This is where doing a questionnaire at the beginning of the year helps. You find out what they like and then create a data sheet for the year with useful "insider" info about what the students like. Choose something they all seem to be into that particular year and do some fun bucket drumming to it. Then over the course of the unit you give them the last few minutes to drum along to a track using something everyone learned, and then open it up to some "freestyle" drumming which doesn't have to be musical at all, it can literally just be noise. It's less about having something academic to quantify and more about associating fun with music, which ultimately isn't that important too? I'm def not in the "mUsIc ClAsS sHoUlD aLwAyS jUsT bE fUn!" camp, studying music is an involved process that isn't always fun on the road to being able to do the cool stuff, but it also shouldn't be an always-on strictly regulated affair either.
If you're going to add something like Recorders, I HIGHTLY recommend Flutophones instead. MUCH easier to play for a number of reasons. Much less ear-ache piercing high notes. They're not much more expensive than recorders (if at all more expensive).
Once per week isn't really often enough to develop any truly meaningful music abilities, so a lot of what you're going to be doing is a brief tour of music and things they can do in the future with music. Ways to listen to music more thoughtfully. Connections between contemporary music and what it's typically taught in schools. Ideally also generating an interest in the types of music ensembles they will have access to in the future grades within their district. See if there are any community members with interesting musical backgrounds that can come in and give a presentation. One year I had a local foley person come in and show off how musical instruments are used in cartoon/film for sound effects etc. Even I was pretty entertained by that one.
Fantastic ideas thank you!
Let them use their phones and send them to pitchcraft.me
Sing. Sing some more. Get them excited about singing any way you can. Teach them to sing well. This age group needs to be active, and singing is the cheapest thing you can do, with no setup time.
Start the year by bringing in the coolest guest performer you can find - a high school acapella group is ideal - and go from there.
Most marketed late-elementary general music "activities" -- packets and worksheets and find-a-word puzzles and craft projects -- are time-filling bullshit and the kids know it. Singing is legit.
Who is doing packets and word searches and craft projects in general music???
Too many by-the-hour subcontractors with no actual music ed training hired by too many charter schools. They post on here sometimes looking for ideas.
Do they have Recorders? Maybe teach them a new song.
Recorders are coming next year. I'm doing a bucket drumming unit with them now because their rhythm needs a lot of work since they haven't had any music ed ever.
I do a participation point grade. If they lose points I annotate it in the grade book in case any parents or admin asks why a student is getting a c. Many expect to g ET an easy ‘a’ in music class and I changed that. So 1-2 points for attendance (1 if tardy 2if on time), 1-2 points time management (1 if not ready 2 if ready and waiting for me to begin), 1-2 points teamwork, 1-2 points active listening, and 1-2 points effort. I also have quizzes and performance exams. If we have a concert that is also an assignment. This has helped turning the culture around to take music class as a regular class. I tell them music is mandatory like all their other subjects
It might be good to check out Music Will. Lots of lesson plans there for this group.
Honestly in 4th/5th grade they may shape up if you embarrass them by holding their hands/sticks to "correct" their playing on the buckets. I mean, if they are acting like toddlers, treat them like toddlers.
I'd straight up talk to the entire class like normal and then give the disruptors a lil baby tawk to bring them up to speed
Connect with the kid. Find out what THAT kid likes and get to know them a bit more. Connect their interests to music making. Begin with the connection, and things will slowly begin to fall into place.
I almost never have this problem.
Maybe it's dumb luck, maybe it's the school culture, maybe it's something about me, maybe I just happen to do activities that resonate with this age group.
My 4th and 5th graders like folk dancing, singing games (like "Closet Key), playing Orff instruments and tubanos. They loove Poison Pattern, for some reason, and ask to do it week after week. I did an Artie Almeda activity with paper plates to Brahm's Hungarian Rhapsody and they liked that a lot.
I recently got certified in Conversational Solfege and implementing it has helped made my lesson planning easier. The kids do like some of the "techniques," like Walk the Plank, and they seem to appreciate the challenge of going through the steps.
As far as being disruptive with a drum or something -- yeah, take it away. If that's what they want, okay then. At least the rest of the class can enjoy themselves.
Other than bucket drumming, what else have you been doing with them?