Submitted by Nickie, Ohio
Idea posted June 12, 2009
Here's what I did for MIOSM this year. All the ideas worked surprisingly well!
Kindergarten: The kindergartners colored pictures of music-related things. Then they wrote, "Happy Music In Our Schools Month! Love, ______." I then hung them up around the school and the community.
First grade: The first graders did worksheets that said, "My favorite song is ______." They had to also draw a picture to go with their favorite song. These also were used to decorate the halls.
Second grade: The second graders did worksheets that said, "I love music because ____." They had to write three sentences and draw a picture about why they love music. They could write about why they love music class, or why they love music in general. I also hung these up. (These came out really cute!)
Third grade: The third graders wrote paragraphs. The prompt was, "What would the world be like without music?" They had to write 3-5 sentences. I extracted one good quote from each paragraph and made a "quote wall" display. Really colorful, really big, really bright and in the gym/cafeteria. Awesome!
Fourth grade: My fourth graders did a writing contest with the prompt, "What would the world be like without music?" I picked a first, second, and third place winner from each fourth grade class. They won a special lunch with me (complete with MIOSM cupcakes!) where we ate together in the library, then went outside to play music games. The first place winners each won a middle school band t-shirt, too, that I got our band director to donate. The essays came out quite well and the kids got pretty into it. (They're so competitive!)