St. Patrick’s Day Magic in the Elementary Music Room
One of the most fun lessons I ever did happened on a whim. I had some extra chocolate coins and a tiny cauldron from a party, so I decided to tell my students a leprechaun hid something in the room. I acted confused about a note that I found slipped under the door (conveniently right before first grade music class!)
They were intrigued. We normally follow the same routine every class, but of course we had to put that on hold and follow the leprechaun’s letter instead!
The fun thing about this is that you can use whatever songs, dances, games, videos, you want. We had already been singing the song Rattlin Bog, so we sang that to see if it gave us any clues. It did not, so we moved onto the next activity.
When I did this activity a few years ago, I’m sure I found an Irish dance video on Youtube for us to follow. I find that my young students don’t have a lot of success with true Irish dances, so I recently made a new movement video set to Irish music.
Alas, although that was fun, it did not give us any clues about the treat left in the music room.
The last activity is where the magic happens. I took a white crayon and wrote “on top of the cabinet” or something similar on a coloring sheet. It was outside the normal area where the kids would color. They completed the coloring sheet, then I suggested they color the background.
When the first kid saw the letters appear, she gasped. They all started looking at her paper, then frantically coloring their own. Once they read the words, they started yelling “on the cabinet!” I looked up and, voila! there was a pot of gold!
Here is a link to this editable listening glyph (it’s free!) You can use any coloring sheet, but this one is nice so students are required to listen closely to music. You can change what each charm color/element of music is to fit the piece you listen to.
Important—check how clearly visible the white crayon is before you have students color. I have had some crayons that work really well and some that don’t show up enough. You could also use invisible ink and blacklight pens like these if you don’t think the crayons will work!
This is a really fun way to incorporate multiple musical activities while making fond memories for your youngest students!
