Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

Last week, we had our first assembly at school. At FHCDS, we have K-8 school assemblies every G Day (we have a 7-day cycle), so that the entire school can gather as a community. These assemblies consist of our concerts and students’ works; performers from dance companies, opera companies, theater companies, and instrumentalists; and educational assemblies on the environment, various countries, writers, history, and story tellers.

For the first assembly, our 6th through 8th graders were on adventure trips, which meant the assembly would only be for students in K-5. Therefore, I asked our assembly coordinator if I could have a 40-minute sing-along. I invited one of my good friends who is a drummer to come in and accompany me as I lead the students from the piano. I also created a powerpoint (actually a keynote presentation - which is MAC’s version of powerpoint. I like it because it offers better and smoother transitions, among other reasons.) so that students could sing along with me. This first assembly was very successful and the students love it! After they experienced this assembly, they entered my music classroom singing with more enthusiasm than they did the week before.

I usually pick patriotic songs and songs that we have sung in music class. To make sure that I keep the 5th graders interested, I will add a couple of pop tunes. This past year, our school opened a new gymnasium, so I added some sports songs and some fight songs to the curriculum to get the students into the spirit of the new gymnasium (and to keep them singing).

If you would like to view, use, or adapt my powerpoints, please feel free. I have included them as a keynote document (MAC users who own iWork), a pptx document (the most recent version of powerpoint) and a ppt document (the older version of powerpoint). I hope that it encourages you to perform a sing-along with your elementary students.

To download either of the presentations, please click here. Since the files are rather large for this blog, this link will bring you to my home page where you can download them there.