Musical May

Make it a musical May!  Every May (sometimes every March if the year is shorter) I plan to show a musical to all of my classes.  Many students are not exposed to musicals at home and this is a great time to introduce them to a genre they may just fall in love with! Top 5 Reasons to Have a Musical May 1.  Most students are not familiar with traditional musicals and introducing your students to them now can create a life long love of musical theater. 2.  It's May.  It is possible that your schedule is just crazy with rescheduled classes from testing, field trips, assemblies, end of the year dodge ball tournaments or whatever.  Musical May is a great way to give your kids awesome musical content with little prep and maximum flexibility. 3.  It doesn't really matter if you finish the musical or not.  If you do, awesome.  If you don't, encourage your students to finish the musical on their own. 4.  It's a great excuse to try out some flexible seating options to see it is for you.  Students can use rugs, cushions and other flexible seating options while watching the movie. 5.  Musicals make people happy.  Don't you need a little more happiness during what can be the most stressful month of they year?

How to Make Musical May Special I like to promote Musical May during the last week of April with signs posted around the school.  It's an easy and fun way to get students excited about it.  Sometimes I'll include quotes from the movie too.  For example before I showed "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" I hung up this sign:

When Musical May (or March) begins, I create a mini bulletin board on my door to highlight it and post some general questions. These questions about the musical really spark some great discussions as students wait in the hall.  Even teachers and staff members pop their heads in on occasion to see if they could remember the answers.  Fun!

Sometimes I'll have a little snack for students during one of the times they visit my classroom for Musical May.  At my local supermarket, they often have gigantic bags of popcorn for just a few bucks.  One bag per class was usually more than enough and it made Musical March feel like an event.  Another year (at a MUCH smaller school) I purchased ice pops for each class.  They were inexpensive and the lovely ladies of lunch stored them in their freezer until I needed them.  At another school I had an amazing PTO President that volunteered to come in every day for a week to pop enough popcorn for each student in music class.  What a blessing! Weekly trivia questions over the intercom can be another way to make Musical May a special event.  Read the question and then give students a few second to think about it before giving the answer or have them drop their answers in a bucket or can and draw a winner for a small prize at the end of the day. How to Make Musical May Educational I do several things to make Musical May educational.  When working with third grade and up, they watch their musical with a viewing guide.  The viewing guides don't always focus on the musical aspects of the story, but more on setting, plot and interpreting the lyrics and motivations of characters.  

When the musical is finished we may play a melody from the musical on Orff instruments, sing a song from the musical, write a parody of one of the songs or even write our own review of the musical.  Older students enjoy creating slideshows that show the history of the musical too.

 With younger students, we watch the musical for part of the period and then do an activity from one of my sets.  They may write about a character or a song or do a coloring sheet.  They next time they come we will do the same thing.  We will watch the musical for most of the period and then do a short activity related to it.  I have found that this works best for younger learners.

Making Musical May Happen I have created several resources that you might find handy during your Musical May or Musical March.  They are all actually bundled up in one bundle in my store (or you can purchase just what you need too).  Check out this Musicals Mega Bundle which includes tons of resources for these musicals:
Wizard of Oz 
Oklahoma
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers 
The Sound of Music Mega Pack 
Mary Poppins Mega Pack of Activities 
The King and I Mega Pack of Activities 
Bye Bye Birdie Mega Pack of Activities 
Annie Mega Pack of Activities 
West Side Story
The Music Man
Singin' in the Rain

Other Musical Goodies:

My Book of Mary Poppins
My Book of The Wizard of Oz
Musicals Word Search Puzzles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you show the same musical to all grades?

Right now I am teaching 3rd, 4th and 5th grades so I do.  When I taught K-8 I showed two different musicals.  One for the lower grades and one for the upper grades.

Do your admins support this?

You bet.  I show them the worksheets and other activities that we will do with the musical and they are all on board.  Sometimes they'll sneak in to watch them too!

Do you need special permission to legally show a movie in class?

Yep.  In all likelihood, your district or building already has one.  Learn more about copyright for schools here.
Do you show the whole movie or just clips?
It really depends on many factors.  The group I am showing it to, the amount of time I have to celebrate Musical May and the length of the musical are all things I take into consideration.  As a general rule, yes.  I try to show the entire musical. I hope that these ideas help you have a happy Musical May!  If you liked these ideas,  pin them for later:

Annie: Ideas for Using this Musical in Your Classroom

Annie is a favorite musical of young and old.  My grandma introduced me to this musical.  Actually, I think I still have the VHS tape with her name on it that she let me borrow many years ago.  Annie is one of the musicals that I rotate and show my students.  As I said in my post about Mary Poppins, I often rotate the musicals that I teach each year so that by the time students leave my classroom they have seen 5-6 classic musicals.  For some students this is the only time that they'll see them.

Annie is a musical that is familiar to some of my students.  They recognize "Tomorrow" but often don't know the story of the musical.  Before we start watching we'll talk about the difference between an orphanage and foster care as most of them don't really know what an orphanage is.  We'll also listen to "Tomorrow" and discuss what the story might be about based on just that song.

I've taken some of my favorite Annie activities and bundled them in a MEGA Pack of activities.  You can get it HERE.  Included in this download are many activities that work for first grade through 8th grade.  I've actually used a few of them with a general music class in high school too.  As music teachers I think it is important to have resources that we can adapt for many grade levels.  I'm going to share a few of them in this post.

In this activity, students are asked to imagine what Annie's day may have been like at the orphanage compared to her days at the Warbucks mansion.  What did she eat?  What did she do for entertainment?  Did the way she was schooled change?  Class time is limited so this is arranged in columns so that it is easy for students to see where the information needs to go and to compare them quickly.

Retelling the story is always an interesting exercise to grade.  Sometimes I'm really surprised at the details students choose to single out and add to this worksheet.  When we work on retelling the story with words and pictures I have them do the first box and last box before filling in the middle details.  In this way, students know what they are working towards and it generally creates a better result.

There are many worksheets for character analysis and identification in this set.  There's a character sheet for each of the main characters.  There aren't any directions on it so you can guide students to complete it to your specifications.  I have students draw the character and then write a short paragraph introducing her to someone who has never seen the musical.  Also included are Venn diagrams to compare characters as well as a character match.

In the character match activity, students are given a brief description of a main character.

We also talk about setting in musical theater and Annie is no exception.  This activity asks students to draw the setting and then write about it.

A color sheet is included for your youngest learners.  I often leave this for a sub and have students listen to songs from the musical.  It is also a great sheet to send home with students.

You can get this MEGA Pack of activities HERE or as part of a Mega BUNDLE of musicals (11 included so far!) HERE.

  

More Resources

THIS resource by PBS is a great way to introduce students to the many jobs in musical theater.  Each position has a short video that describes the jobs.  My kids have really responded positively to seeing that you can work in musical theater and not be a singer on the stage.  Offered by Thirteen.org, THIS resource is great for focusing on Annie in musical theater. Love the new Annie movie?  If you have time it might be nice to do a compare and contrast by showing clips of both movies.  Scholastic has some free printable resources that you may like.  You can find it HERE. I hope that these resources help you explore and celebrate the music of Annie with your students.

Mary Poppins: Ideas for the Classroom

Mary Poppins is one of my favorite musicals.  I love the magic of make-believe and love the family positive message.  I often rotate musicals by the year so by the time my students leave my building they have seen 5-6 classic musicals.  I tend to show the same musical to multiple grade levels and use different activities with each group.

I've compiled many of these activities into Mega Packs that you can purchase in my store.  Each pack contains a viewing guide, coloring sheets and other worksheets appropriate for K-6.  I've used these resources with 7th and 8th graders and some with a high school general music class.  In this post, I'm going to highlight a few of the activities I use.

With 5th and 6th grades we watch Mary Poppins with a viewing guide.  Younger grades often struggle to keep up with the questions while watching, so I don't usually use viewing guides with them.  The viewing guides ask students to answer questions about what is going on in the video.  Most of the questions aren't really for musical assessment but more to keep them on task.  This works great if they start the musical or finish it with a sub.  I usually don't get musical subs so it is an activity that any sub feels comfortable with.

In the Mary Poppins set, I have included a worksheet that includes names of people and things from the musical are listed.  Students are asked to identify the number of syllables in each and then match them with notation.

I have also included graphic organizers that ask students to compare and contrast songs from the musical.  I don't have a photo of one of those, but they are a quick and easy way to incorporate writing.  I love that they provide an opportunity for students to refer to the word wall and write using musical terminology.

For my younger learners, I love to use a coloring sheet while listening to the soundtrack.  After they have seen the movie, they often want to sing along.  I love that!

Character analysis is an important skill.  I've included several sheets and a couple of different ways for students to share what they know about the characters and compare them.  I love what this one says: Mary Poppins is pretty.  She is smart and knows how to take care of kids.

Indeed!

Analyzing other themes in the musical can sometimes take a great deal of time.  In the Mary Poppins set, I've included a couple of worksheets to help with this.  In the one pictured above students are asked to explain how ordinary objects become extraordinary when Mary Poppins is around.

In each of the Musical Mega Packs I've included sheets that ask students to illustrate a song from the musical.  I love the creative ways that students approach this.  Sometimes I'll send these sheets home for them to finish and then display them outside of my classroom or on a bulletin board.

You can get the Mary Poppins set HERE.

It is also part of a larger, growing bundle that already has TEN musical mega packs and a couple of bonus files included.  Check it out HERE.

Another activity that I use is the My Book of Mary Poppins.  This is another activity that I might use while listening to the soundtrack with K-2.  This is such a nice momento for students to take home and classroom teachers LOVE the finished project too!

I usually print and staple the books together to same time with my Kindergarten classes.  The other groups can usually put theirs together and complete most of it during class.  The whole set contains 14 different pages for students to complete.  You can download it HERE.

In addition to watching the movie and completing some of the activities above we will often learn a song or two from the musical.  I love this arrangement by John Jacobson.  If you are a Music Express subscriber you may have this version of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

I hope you enjoy some of these activities and consider using Mary Poppins with your classes this year!  If you are on Pinterest, you might enjoy this Pinterest board on Musicals:

Follow The Bulletin Board Lady-Tracy King's board Music Class - Musicals on Pinterest.