Creating the Concept

The first thing you’ll need to decide is what exactly you want to do! You may need to bring in some outside help on this front- talk with your administrators to figure out what will fit the school’s calendar best, how long to make the assembly and who all will be included. You’ll need to figure out where and when to hold the assembly and make sure to get it on everyone’s calendars- the office, custodians, and classroom teachers will all need to be aware ahead of time, since it will impact everyone’s schedules. Once you have those details worked out, you’ll need to decide what type of event this will be. Will you have the kids perform in front of each other, or will it be an assembly where everyone sings everything together? In my school, our All-School Sing is the only performance opportunity in December, so I have each grade level prepare two songs to perform for the rest of the school. Then we sing familiar seasonal tunes together as we transition between grade levels. This works well for me, but there are tons of other options that might be a better approach for you and your school community.

Choose Your Performance Music

Choosing music can be a daunting task, especially if you are trying to put together a themed performance for an entire school. I teach grades K-6 in my building, so that means selecting 14 unique pieces if I want every grade level to perform alone. I have had years where it worked better to have two grades perform together, which definitely cuts down on the planning. Remember- you can choose to plan this however works best for you and your students! This should be a fun experience for everyone- don’t make so much work for yourself that you can’t enjoy it with the kids.

When it comes time to pick the songs each grade will perform, I grab my winter editions of Music K8 magazine (which I thankfully have many years to choose from) and get to work. I typically use their Magazine Index feature on the website to pull up Winter songs, then can listen to excerpts there to make my list. This works way faster than rooting through all the CDs to listen and make my choices. I also keep a running list of what each grade has performed every year so I don’t repeat the same things all the time. That can be a challenge when I have this performance at the same time of year every year. To be honest, I always use the same recorder songs in grades 3-6 because there just aren’t enough options that are seasons, use the notes my kids know, and are simple enough to memorize in a few short classes. I do recycle the vocal selections as well, but never two years in a row. 

Spending Some Time in the Copy Room…

Once your music is selected, it’s time to get it organized. This is going to take some time, so I typically go in the Sunday after Thanksgiving so I can spread out and have the Copy Room all to myself. I create a single binder where I keep one copy of everything. I love that Music K8 magazine give reproduction rights to use the music in our classrooms. I copy the piano part, the student part, and the lyric sheet and keep them all together for each song in my binder. I keep the binders from year to year- which has been very helpful when I am selecting the new music each year. I can leaf through them to see what songs I did in prior years, and I can quickly make new copies of music from the copies I’d already made previously. Once I have each song copied out of the magazine, I also scan and save a digital copy of the pages to easily print again in the future. I also use these scans to create slide show we use during class. The last thing I keep in the binder is a burned CD with all of the audio files on it. I don’t typically use the CD, but it’s always good to have a back-up, or to have it on hand for a sub to use if I catch a stomach bug in December (like I did last year)!

For my students in grades 3-6, I create a handout with their music on it. They all play recorder at this performance (yes, even my brand new beginning 3rd graders are ready to perform this simple arrangement I wrote called “Winters Here!”), and need to have a paper they can take home to practice from. They are also able to read and track the lyrics on the page well enough that having the paper is helpful. I do not make handouts for the younger grades, as it is too challenging for them to follow along, and the sounds of the papers rustling drives me to the edge of my sanity. Instead, I create a slide show with the lyrics and then embed the audio files within each slide to use during music class. I do this for all of the grade levels, so there are 14 slides in all. Here’s an example of one I made for my Kindergarten students this year. Since they aren’t expert readers yet, I created a slide and put pictures of the items they’ll sing about in the correct order to help them remember. For the 1st and 2nd graders I have the lyrics on a slide with the audio file, but I can often find a video on YouTube with the lyrics showing much bigger and easier for them to follow along with while we practice. For the older students, I rely on them being able to read the lyrics on the screen in the slide show or to use their paper to follow along.

Musically,

Chrissy @ Hutzel House of Music