March Music Madness

March Music Madness is an event that my school looks forward to during Music in Our Schools Month.  This bracket style tournament has one objective:  crown one song as the champion of music based on student votes.   There are several ways that you can host this event in your music classroom.  Keep reading to learn more.

There are three basic steps to take in planning and carrying out March Music Madness:

    1.  Song Selection

    2.  Experiencing the Music

    3.  Voting

Song Selection

There are several ways to go about selecting songs for March Music Madness.  

• You Choose - Select 16 songs that you think your students might like.  Consider choosing a variety of different genres and include pieces that are popular now and from several different decades (or centuries!).
• Staff Chooses - Invite staff members to recommend songs for the music bracket.  Send out an email asking for suggestions or maybe share a Google spreadsheet for them to record their recommendations.  When I do this, I add an extra incentive by rewarding the staff member that recommended the winning song with a gift card.  
• Students Choose - Have students share their favorite songs.  Be sure to check both the lyrics and any accompanying video for appropriateness if you choose to show videos.

I prefer to invite staff members to submit recommendations.  Their recommendations are already checked for lyrics and content, so that saves me time.  It also creates opportunities for great conversations in students' regular classrooms about the styles, genres and artists related to the songs.  Staff members love checking the bulletin board that I put up with the bracket each week to see how their song is doing.

I am a very theme oriented person and think that adding themes like "Music of the Movies", "Color Wars" (songs with colors in the title), "Heroes and Villains" or "Old and New" (originals and cover versions) can make this even more fun.  A friend of mine did a Disney Showdown theme and students and staff loved it!

Experiencing the Music

How will your students explore the March Music Madness bracket?  Here are a few options to consider:

• Lesson Plans - Add the bracket to your lesson plans.  The first week will probably take most of your class period to get through each song.  During the first week I usually only play about a minute to a minute and a half of each song.  The second week maybe 20-30 seconds more.  The last two weeks there is time to play all of the songs as the majority of songs have been eliminated by then.  
• Morning Announcements - Some teachers share their music bracket on the morning announcements.  Two songs per morning are played and then students vote on the songs with their homeroom teachers and the homeroom teachers enter their tallies on a shared spreadsheet.  The winners are announced the next day and this continues until there is only one winner.  If this works best for you, you will probably want to choose a smaller amount of songs so that you can get through the bracket in a month.
• Google Slides or PowerPoint - Another option is to create a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation with the songs either linked to a playlist on a streaming service or to a music video.  Homeroom teachers present the songs, tally votes for their class and then send the count to you.  After the first round, send out a new slideshow with the winners and then repeat until there is only one winner.   If you teach older students, you could share the slideshow in Google Classroom or another digital classroom setting.

I usually present the songs to students using a video that I find on Youtube or Vimeo.  I add them to Google slides (because we can skip the commercials on YouTube that way) and present them in class and tally the votes myself.  Last year I had to miss a day in March, so I sent the slide show to the classes I would have seen that day and the homeroom teachers tallied votes that day.  The teachers that were involved loved this!

Voting

    I've previously mentioned voting as something that I do or ask homeroom teachers do.  In the past I have had students close their eyes and raise their hands to vote in my classroom.  I ask them to close their eyes so that they don't all follow the popular kid or try to see what a friend is voting for and vote that way.  This has worked for most classes but there are always kids that refuse to cooperate and then blurt out.  This year I am going to experiment with a couple of different ways to vote.

    I'll use pencil and paper with some classes.  They will circle their answers and turn their papers in on their way out of class.  This will require me to create a new page each week and tally all the papers myself.  That doesn't sound fun for nearly 500 students, but I'm testing it with a few classes that have demonstrated issues with self control and blurting. 

    In other classes, I will use Plickers.  Plickers are cards with codes on them.  Students hold them up to vote.  The teacher then scans the cards by taking a picture of the whole class holding up their signs in the Plickers app.  It isn't complicated to use and I think my 3rd, 4th and 5th graders can handle it.  You can learn more about Plickers here.  The best part about this method is that it is fast and FREE!

    You may consider collecting votes digitally using a poll or form in Google Classroom, Padlet, ClassQuestion or other online services.

Displaying the Bracket

I create a bulletin board that showcases the March Music Madness bracket and update it each week as winners are chosen.  It hangs outside the music room which is across from the cafeteria.  Each class passes it at least once a day.  

To set the board up, I type up the song titles (including artist or composer and the staff member that recommended it) and place them on the left.  Then I add the next columns of boxes for the winning songs that will move forward.  In the picture above I used a black marker to draw the bracket lines.  In the picture below I used colored masking tape.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the goal of this activity?

One of the goals of this activity is to explore the elements of different genres.  Students can fall in love with new artists, new instruments and new styles of music with this activity.  Another goal is to facilitate higher level conversations between students in which they compare and contrast songs, critique using music terminology and make choices about the kinds of music they want to consume or perform.

2.  What if I miss a day of school and can't leave this for my substitute to do? 

You could try sending the slideshow or links to the homeroom teachers of the classes you missed or just don't include their votes for that round.

3.  I can't use YouTube at school.  What else can I do?  

Use music you already own or link your bracket to a streaming service.

4.  What if my bracket is uneven?

It happens.  Select a song or two and just bump them up to the next round.  This is like getting a "buy" in a sports tournament.  You can select a song that you think will win or a couple of songs and have their first duel be in the second or third rounds.

Need some help getting started?  Check out my March Music Madness Starter Kit.  You'll find more than 50 song suggestions that you can link to your preferred listening media, editable brackets and bulletin board elements.

Have a great Music in Our Schools Month and may all of your March madness be filled with music!

Music Inspires Bulletin Board

At one of the first schools I taught at I was inspired greatly by the elementary secretary.  Each quarter she designed a bulletin board that featured the names of every student in the elementary building.  I loved her creativity and I loved that she worked to make every student feel special.  Students would search for their names, the names of their friends and brothers and sisters.  It was truly a way to multiply joy in the building.

This colorful bulletin board is my attempt to do the very same thing.  Although that creative secretary worked with about 100 names, I took on around 450 students plus teachers and staff.  I used the message "Music inspires our minds to bloom."  This incorporates Nafme's "Music Inspires" theme and speaks to our outrageously warm March.  It feels like spring around here!

The tree is created with hundreds of small paper flowers.  I created the trunk to look like a person, inspired by the Nafme promo image.  I made time during each class period to talk about Music In Our Schools Month and to lead a discussion about the power of music in our lives.  Students them wrote their names on a flower and I put them up as time allowed.  

I used the Fiskars 3 inch Punch Pretty Scallop paper punch to make all of the flowers.  This would be fun to do with a music note punch too!

You could take this same idea and have students write not only their name, but something that music inspires them to do.  Run faster, dream bigger, dance, laugh.....I bet the answers would truly be inspiring!

Students and staff have enjoyed finding their names and this display is a huge explosion of color in the hall. I love that!

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Spirit Days for Music In Our Schools Month

Celebrate Music In Our Schools Month with music dress up days!  Plan an eventful month that ends with a spirit week using some of the ideas below.

When planning dress up days plan themes that most students will be able to do.  Although Michael Jackson look alike day may be fun, it is not likely that all of your students would be able to do it. Choose themes that are easy to interpret in a variety of ways.

Create a letter to send home to explain MIOSM and give some guidelines for participating.  I always make sure parents know that students have to work all day so their spirit outfits should be comfortable and not inhibit their vision, ability to walk safely or participate in all school activities.  It never ceases to surprise me when it comes to dress up days!  I also mention the words “school appropriate” a few times for those Madonna wannabes. 

Here are a few ideas for musical dress up days:

Genre Days

Rock Star Hair Day-Tease it! Spray it! Color it! Spike it!  Go all rock and roll on your hair today to celebrate Music In Our Schools Month!

Blues Day – Wear blue today to celebrate the soulful coolness of the blues music.

Country Music Day –Let’s go back to the early days of country music.  Blue jeans, flannel shirts, overalls, boots and cowboy hats will make you a country superstar today!

A Day at the Opera – Dress up in your finest clothes as we celebrate the music of the opera.

Classical Music Day – Classical music is everywhere and today let’s celebrate it by wearing a classic white t-shirt!

Decade Days

50s Sock Hop Day – Don your poodle skirts, leather jackets and bobby socks as we celebrate the decade that brought us Bill Haley and the Comets, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley.

60s Tie Dye Day – Groovy man!  Wear tie dye today to celebrate the decade that introduced us to the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.

70s Disco Day – Pull out your bellbottoms, leisure suits and hippie fashions as we celebrate the sensational seventies!

80s Hair Band Day – Hairspray anyone?  Rock out your hair today and tall and as crazy as you can as we celebrate the decade that introduced us to hair bands  like Poison, Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, Firehouse and Whitesnake.

90s Grunge Day –A big movement in the early nineties was comfortable and inexpensive-grunge!  Holey jeans, big t-shirts and flannel shirts were all the rage!  Grunge it up today as we celebrate the decade that brought us the music of Hootie and the Blowfish, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morissette and The Backstreet Boys.

More Ideas:

Music TIES us Together – Wear a tie to celebrate how music brings together people of all cultures and ages.

Inside Out Day – Wear your clothes inside out today to celebrate the way touches us inside (our feelings) and displays itself on the outside (smiling, dancing, etc…)

Band T-shirt Day –Celebrate your favorite band or musician by wearing their t-shirt today!

Disney Musical Day –Take inspiration from your favorite Disney musical today by dressing as a hero, a princess, a villain or another favorite character.

Music of the Night – Wear your favorite pajamas today to celebrate music in our schools!

Life Would be CRAZY Without Music –Crazy hair day!

Celebrity Crush –Come dressed as your favorite musician today!

Color Wars – Each class comes wearing an assigned color.  Assign colors inspired by bands: RED Hot Chili Peppers, The BLUES Brothers, BLACK Sabbath, PINK Floyd, GREEN Day, Moody BLUES, BLACK Keys, BLACK Eyed Peas, WHITE Lion, Deep PURPLE, etc…  Award the class with the most participants with treats at the end of the day.

End your spirit week with an assembly that celebrates your band and choir members.  Invite local performers or your high school band to come and play.  Haul everyone to the gym for a sing along.  Make music!

Have fun celebrating music in your school!  If you do some music spirit days, I’d love to see pictures!  Email me or connect with me on Facebook.

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Promoting Music In Our Schools Month

March is Music in Our Schools month and one of my favorite times of year.  This is a great month to educate your school and community about the importance of music education.  It is also a great time to brag on your amazing students.  Plan performances, radio spots, a special newsletter and huge bulletin board or hallway displays in your school. 

HERE are a few ideas for decorating for MIOSM from a previous blog post.

Looking for some fresh ideas for celebrating Music In Our Schools Month?  Try a few of my favorites below!

Daily/Weekly Music Trivia

This is such a fun idea and the competition heats up day after day.  When I taught in a K-12 district I did a weekly trivia question for the elementary and a daily one for 7^th-12^th grade.  For the elementary students I put the question up and then a coffee can that they could put their answers (plus name and class) into and collected it on Friday and announced the winner. 

For the older grades it was a little easier as they had daily announcements typed and delivered to each classroom.  I would put the question of the day on and announce the winner on the next day in the announcements.  I had a can for collecting answers in my classroom and one right outside the office so the secretary and principal could keep an eye on it.

For prizes I called around to local businesses to see what they could donate to support music in our schools (and yes, I asked using that phrase).  We had free ice cream cones from Dairy Queen, hamburgers from McDonald's, tacos from Taco Bell, personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut, free sodas from local gas stations and grocery stores and more.  They were quite excited to be a part of something to support the arts.   I sweetened the deal by promising them a shout out in our local paper.

The questions varied from music history, current music trends, music vocabulary and even questions about the musical background of the teachers and staff.  I could have had the students come up with the questions, but I was trying to keep it as fair as I could.

Over the Intercom

There are so many cool ideas for using your school intercom or P.A. system that are easy to do and really get your whole school involved in celebrating MIOSM.

National Anthem- Although I wish this was something we did every day, I definitely scheduled these special performances to happen during Music In Our Schools Month.  I invited a class down to the office and we led the school in the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of the national anthem.  If space is a problem you could just record the class during music time.

This Day in Music History-Great for daily announcements too, adding an interesting tidbit about music history is fun and educational.  Here are a couple of websites that can help in preparing for this.  This might be a great project for students too!
This Day in History – Look to the right hand side.  Sometimes there are several things under the Music category.

This Day in Music History –This is great, but usually has many things to read through.

Mystery Singer –Secretly recruit teachers and staff members to sing over the intercom.  If privacy (or performance anxiety) are an issue, you can record these ahead of time.  Have them all sing the same song (maybe the national anthem or your school song) or let them choose a song.  A verse or verse and chorus is usually enough.  Have students put their guesses in a coffee can or collect them online if your school has the technology and award a randomly chosen winner with a treat delivered by that person.

Another great way to do this is to have each class vote on who it is and submit their answer as a class.  This requires a bit more help from your classroom teachers, but is still lots of fun!  The winning class gets to hang a banner or plaque on their door until a new winner is announced.  Create a Mystery Singer Detectives of the Day certificate, pop it in an inexpensive frame from the dollar store and a way to hang it.  (A piece of yarn or magnets might do the trick depending on your setup.)

Brown Bag It

It might be possible for you to partner with a local grocery store to spread a music positive message in the community in a very artful way.  I contacted a local grocery store and asked if we might decorate their paper bags with a Music In Our Schools Month messages and pictures.  Partnering with the art teacher, we used art and music class time to color one side of the bags and then gave them back to the grocery store to use during March.  This was such an attention getter!  I had emails and phone calls about how much they loved carrying home their groceries in the bag.  The local grocer was pretty happy with this event as well!

I hope that these ideas will inspire you to try something new this year with your music advocacy efforts.  You are the strongest advocate for your program and your students.

One of my favorite displays comes from the stories of teachers and staff members.  I ask them a few questions about their musical tastes, activities and history and then create a display that has delighted both students and other staff members.  You can read about that bulletin board and download a freebie to get you started HERE.



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Decorating ideas for Music in Our Schools Month

I love March because March is Music In Our Schools Month!  I love using this opportunity to push my music advocacy efforts even more.  I love using this opportunity to brag on my students.  Here are a few ideas for decking the halls for this special month.

Be aDOORable!

For a long time I taught in a very small school district that had one class per grade level.  I sent out an email about two weeks before MIOSM asking everyone with a door if I could decorate it.  I know.  It sounds crazy, but I really wanted to make an impression and this did it!

Take those bulletin boards that you saved.  You know the ones.  The ones that you printed, cut, laminated and cut again and just couldn’t throw out.  Use those as a starting point to decorate as many doors as you can.  Put a positive music message in every place that you can. 

A simple display like this one would easily fit on a door.  Just type up a few musical things and their current cost and add the title "the joy of music...priceless."  I used instrument prices, the cost of a CD, a music download, an MP3 player and private lessons.  Fun!

Brag on Your Amazing Students

I love bulletin boards that brag on students.  Students love to see their names on the wall.  Bragging bulletin boards are win-win!  They can also be super easy!  In these two examples I put student names and if they were a member of band or choir I added that too.  Use inexpensive notepads from the teacher store and let students write their own name and the boards are even easier!

All Halls Salute

I love to take one of the longest hallways in the school and create a HUGE display.  My favorites are the ones that are student generated.  They tend to get the most attention and stop the most traffic.

For this display I took plain paper plates and had students (K-6) decorate them using a good singing face.  We discussed mouth position, eyebrows, etc... and got this gorgeous display

Another year I chose a Mindcraft theme with this Music Crafts Your Mind display.  Students loved coloring their own avatar and writing music positive messages.

All a BOARD!

Pick a bulletin board that is colorful and eye-catching with a strong message of music advocacy.  Here are a few of my favorites:

It is not a SHAM.  Music ROCKS!

Music is Out of This World
Music ROCKS!

Have a great month celebrating music in our schools!

Music Crafts Your Mind -Celebrating MIOSM

March is Music in Our Schools Month!  Hurray!  It is my favorite teaching month of the year!  Each year I plan a bulletin board that students can contribute to.  One year it was a singing paper place person.  Hundreds of them filled the hallways.  Another year we created paper t-shirts and "hung out" in the hall.  This year, I've posted a Minecraft inspired bulletin board called "Music Crafts Your Mind".

 

My favorite part of this bulletin board is the student portion.  I used blank templates for little blockhead avatars.  They customized them and then added speech bubbles with music positive messages.  Take a look at some from the first batch I posted.

 

The kids loved contributing in this fun way and it has already stopped traffic in the hallways as students and teachers pause to take a look at the Music In Our Schools Month messages.

 

You can get this bulletin board HERE.

 

 

 

Music in Our Schools Month Staff Surveys

Hurray!  It is Music in Our Schools Month!  My favorite teaching month of the year!  One of my favorite things to do to celebrate MIOSM is to connect students with the musicality of people around them.  I've sent home music interest surveys to parents, played "find a friend who..." games where students find others that like the same kind of music that they do and I've created bulletin boards that showcase the musical backgrounds of teachers and staff members.

These bulletin boards are such a popular display that I find students and staff out staring at it all day.  Here's what I do:

1.  Send out a survey to teachers and staff members in your building.  Have them complete it a week or so before MIOSM begins so that you have time to compile the answers and create your bulletin board.  Here's a sample letter that I send out:

Dear Teachers and Staff,
March is Music in Our Schools Month.  This month long celebration of music education is facilitated by the National Association for Music Education and has been celebrated in some capacity since 1972.  The goal of this month is demonstrate the significance of music education.  Would you help me with this year's celebration?

This year I would like to create a bulletin board that showcases the musical backgrounds and/or tastes of teachers and staff in our building.  Attached is a short, 10-question survey about your musical background and current musical activities.  Please take a moment to complete this and return to me by February 20th. 

Your answers will be compiled into a brief narrative and displayed just outside the music room.  Your name will be hidden and students and staff members will have to guess who is being described.  Don't worry!  The answers will be posted too.  Look for this display in March.

Thank you for participating in this survey and for your support of music education in our school!

Mrs. King


2.  Once you have the surveys returned create a brief narrative in Word or PowerPoint that includes 2 or 3 of the survey questions.  If you work with older students, this might be a fun project for them! Here are a few examples from my last bulletin board:

3.  Next, print out the responses.  I usually cut out a small piece of cardstock or use a colored index card and lay over the name at the bottom.  Place a piece of tape at the top so that viewers can lift it and see the name of person described above.  In the picture below I created the descriptions to be display in half sheet size.  In the display below, I used a full sheet layout.

4.  Create a title for your display.  Some ideas:



• Do You Know These Staff Members by Their Musical Identities?
• WHOOO Knows These Owl Pride Staff Members by their Musical Pasts?
• Celebrate Music in Our School with These Music Lovers
• Musical Mysteries for Music in Our Schools Month

You can download a FREE copy of my survey HERE. 

I'd love to see pictures of your display if you decide to survey your staff for MIOSM.  You can email them to me or post them to my Facebook page. 

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Happy Music in Our Schools Month!!!

I know!  I know!  It's no longer Music in Our Schools Month!  It was a busy month and I couldn't let the school year slip by without showing you my MIOSM display.  Love the creativity these kiddos put into their creations.  I also love what great conversations we had about singing technique!  After discussing what a good singer looks like (tall mouth, eyes on the conductor, etc...) students in K-4 created singing faces.  Displayed together they made a large MIOSM choir in the music hallway.

Lucky Musicians

For Music In Our Schools Month I volunteered to do the bulletin board in the main foyer.

At my little school I did the bulletin board in the main hallway.  Same concept just a slightly different layout.

The plates contain music quotes, statistics about the awesomeness of music education and pictures from music class and performances this year.

Many of the quotes and statistics were found at schoolmusicmatters.com

Find more music bulletin boards that are print and post in my TeachersPayTeacher store.