It's almost that time of year again. March is designated as Music in Our Schools month. What a great way to highlight how music affects education, not only in the music classroom itself, but also within the other classrooms and other disciplines as well!

Have you thought about a bulletin board display showing the many ways music can be used in gym, in art, and in the classroom subject areas? Take some photographs during P.E. during the dance unit. Have a student write a short summary about doing warm-ups with pop music. Ask the coach to have the kids do warm-ups with and without music, and have the kids write a short paragraph on the difference it makes. (You can also use this idea with art class.)Tie in social studies and ask the students to research music of the one-room schoolhouses, Civil War, or other historical events. (Incorporate those writing skills!) Have the students write short jingles for:

• learning multiplication tables
• remembering states or presidents
• science terms and facts
• grammar rules

Many music teachers like to start their March mornings off with a trivia quiz. If you can at all, deliver it over the intercom system (make sure that the classroom teachers know that this is coming, so they don't get upset about interrupted classtime. We don't want to TOTALLY take over March!). The students can submit their answers in a box at lunchtime. Have a drawing for the first correct answer, and reward the student with a super sticker, a soda pass, or whatever you like.

My March bulletin board display is a series of pictures taken of the kids throughout the year to that point, doing classroom activities, performing at their Christmas program, etc.

How about a mass choir concert? My daughters' school district has a Choir Night, in which all the choirs, including elementary, perform. It's a great chance for the younger kids to see what can be accomplished, and makes the older kids very nostalgic:-)

On the same order, there are school districts that do exchange choir and band performances with other schools. Or, a large district with several elementary schools can have a mass elementary choir concert at a local park, for public attendance.

Don't forget the World's Largest Concert! Even if you don't get a chance to rehearse the songs to perfection, take one day to familiarize your kids with the songs and have the words handy. Just giving them a chance to see what other children are doing all across the nation is a great motivator. Can't get satellite access? Check with your librarian about taping the production and have your own all-school concert assembly later!

Send a huge thank you card to your national representatives and senators for the government's continued support and recognition of Music in Our Schools month. Have your students sign it. If your school is fairly large, make one card per grade.

Here are some great ideas by Patricia Oeste:
Here are some of the activities I do during MIOSM:
1. Mystery Voice - I tape a well-known teacher,using an easy Orff ostinato, saying a chant about guessing who they are. The kids then get to guess. I don't know why but they absolutely
LOVE to do this. I sometimes have them write down who they think it is, or if time is limited, I just have them whisper the name in my ear.
2. Musical Symbols Mobiles - I wrote that one out last year - basically, it is two sheets of musical symbols. We talk about them first, then color, then laminate, then cut out. After that, we
put yarn on them, bend a hanger into a diamond shape and detach the curved hanger top. The curved hanger top then becomes a hanger to which attaches all of the four corners of the diamond
shaped (bent) hanger - with yarn on each of the four corners. The four yarn pieces from the sides attach to the curved hanger top. The curved hanger top then gets hung in the hallway. Very, very
colorful (third grade does this - 90 students). When March is over, I send them home, each in a plastic bag.
3. I sent out a note last year for the teachers to sign up if they wanted their door decorated in some sort of musical fashion. Out of 42 letters, 40 signed up! I ended up finishing about 25 of them. I
can recycle them this year, and will try to add the rest. I kind of tried to gear it to that specific teacher's likes. Like, the fifth grade science teacher, I did a picture of the "musician's brain". There is one teacher who loves jazz, so I drew a picture of a group of jazz musicians playing their instruments and put a quote about jazz
around it, etc.
4. Musical Lunch Club - (thanks Andrea Cope!). This was a HUGE hit last year. Over spring break any 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade student that wanted to would watch a musical with their parents, fill
out a question sheet and return it to me. In return, they would be invited to the Musical Lunch Club. That is, they got a "ticket" to attend lunch in my room with me providing dessert. I dressed up in
a different costume each time, and they were to try and guess what musical it was from. I wasn't counting on such great participation... There were about 125 kids that ended up being
involved. I took 10 at a time for lunch. I bought those little ice cream cups from the cafeteria (chocolate, vanilla, and rainbow sherbert). That was an inexpensive and easy way to provide the
promised "dessert".
4. WLC at the Capitol - my Orff group participates with 500 other Arkansas kids and with the Governor in attendance. This year we are doing the pre-sing entertainment (that is, 12 minutes of
it). The pressure is on! We will do Bonner's Masterworks for Orff Ensembles, Variations on a Theme by Beethoven. Also, Amazing Grace and The Orchestra.
5. Wear a Musical Piece of Clothing - on a Friday, I ask all of the students to wear a piece of clothing that has musical motives on it. That is a hoot! If they wear something, they come to my
room (this year I have my digital camera and plan to use it to photograph the kids) and receive a piece of Candy!
6. Musical Bulletin Board in the Cafeteria - I use the theme "Music Adds Color to _______ School" and put up pictures of the kids during music, or performing throughout the year, or throughout
past years. This was very very popular. I cut the individual students out and use just their figures, scattered around the huge bulletin board in the Cafeteria. I spray painted the background in
various tie-dye colors. It was really nice.
7. Parent Guest Artists - I have any parents that volunteer come and share their talents with their child's class. This year I have a vocalist (folk), an orchestra director (also, percussionist), an
opera director, a bluegrass player, and a jazz musician. All of these are parents of the kids at our school.
8. Colors of Music; an Informance is on March 1 to open MIOSM. First, second and third grades perform. It will also be televised locally (and they just LOVE to see themselves!)

Wendy Turner's school names foods on the lunch menu with musical terms. (Doesn't pizzacato pizza sound great?)

Laurie Zentz has a music open house in which she invites parents to come sit in and participate in one 40 minute music session.

If you have ideas that you would like to share, please let us know!