How to Encourage Love and Kindness in the Music Room

Sing songs and do activities around this

“Wait… did she just tell me to sing songs with my students in the music room?”  Yes, yes I did. But, what I want to talk about here is what kind of songs I want you to sing with your students.

Have you looked through the resources you have available lately and seen how many amazing songs there are about kindness and love?  Honestly, where I’ve found the greatest songs is in old textbooks.  I’m talking about the oldies, but goodies, like “Skinnamarink”, “Love Somebody”, and “You Are My Sunshine” like I mentioned in this blog post.

Other places to find songs about social emotional learning in the music classroom are in program music like from Music K8, by doing a Google search, and on YouTube.  You might have a favorite place to find songs, and might already have several other types of resources you’ve found great character songs from.  It’s not so much about where you find the songs, but more about just finding and teaching them.

After your students sing the songs, they can of course add instruments, movement, a game, or any other extension activity and can also talk about the words and meaning of the song as well. Students can even split into small groups to talk about what love and kindness mean to them.  They can also write their own verse about love or kindness and perform it for the class.  This can be added onto a song they’ve already learned.

Go over your expectations

You have probably already been going over your expectations with your students, but don’t stop.  You might feel like you sound like a broken record and are tired of repeating yourself.  But, unfortunately this is just part of what you need to do as a teacher.  Just like when you go over procedures with your students all year long and not just the beginning of the school year, the same way you’ll need to go over how you expect your students to treat each other when they come through your music room doors.

Explain to your students daily that everyone is to be included and how no one should feel left out.  Music should be all inclusive and social emotional learning in the music classroom should be included.  Say “everyone is included” and “no one should feel left out” to your students every class period.  Say it as a reminder, before or after an activity, while working on a program, to the whole class, to a small group of kids who need that reminder.  Even though it feels redundant for you to say this over and over, your kids will keep needing these reminders so they know this is the expectation you have in place.

If students keep having issues leaving other students out or are being inconsiderate of the other students feelings, address this.  Don’t let these students continue this behavior and ways you can deal with them is to not let them choose their own groups (which we’ll talk more about in a minute) or partners, and are put with students they may have never worked with before in their general classroom.  You might start to notice behavior changing once they get to know other students in their class they may have never had a conversation with before.  Just keep at it and don’t give up.

Model expected behavior for social emotional learning in the music classroom

If you’re wanting your students to act a certain way in your music room, the best way to do this is by modeling expected behavior.  Show it through your actions.  Even if you’re dealing with a discipline issue, handle it with kindness.  Even if you feel like nothing you’re doing with a child is working, keep at it.  Don’t give up on this child, stay patient, keep loving them and showing kindness, and a lot of times you’ll see certain behaviors turn around. 

Trust the process of including social emotional learning in the music classroom and give it time especially if you’re new.   If you’ve done songs and activities, have tried modeling behavior, have spoken to them about your expectations, trust the process.  My experience is I went from seeing physical fights in my classroom to seeing each class that came through my classroom doors show kindness and love to one another.  They knew my expectations and what I would or wouldn’t put up with and I began to see (after time of course), the kids really starting to respect and love each other for who they are.

Along with modeling behavior, place positive quotes or posters in your room.  These are great conversation starters and are reminders of your expectations as well. It doesn’t matter how many posters or quotes you hang up or where they go in your classroom, as long as the students can see them. 

Then, you can talk to your students about body language and the expressions on their faces.  They’ll begin to notice other students body language and the frowns they’re wearing if they speak a certain way.  A lot of times kids have never had this pointed out to them before.  They’ve never been taught to have empathy towards others and to be aware of how their words and actions are causing others to feel.  

Small group activities for the win

What I love about grouping kids together in the music room is how it’s not based on reading level or math skills.  I completely understand why regular classroom teachers group their students together based on ability.  But, what’s awesome about being a music teacher, is you don’t have to group your students together this way!

You know your students better than anyone and also each unique class that comes through your door.  You’ll have certain classes that each time you tell them to find a small group, they’ll just naturally include each other without needing to be told.   But, you’ll also have classes that you’ll need to assign a partner or a small group to each time, because they’ll naturally just gravitate towards their friends or the kids they have something in common with.  Remind your students, no matter what the class dynamics is like, how everyone is included.  Keep this phrase going all the time.

There are certain times I let students pick their own partner or group, and then other times I choose for them.  It depends on what activity you’re doing.  If it’s a simple movement activity, you can simply just tell them to pick a partner.  There are also several movement activities where the students are switching partners after every phrase (for example).

If it’s a small group activity like centers or a composition activity, I like to group up the kids.  Then, you can do a mixture of your stronger learners with your lower learners in those groups. But, I also like to switch it up and partner or group different kids together each time. Then, they have the opportunity by the end of the school year to be with every child in their class.  You’ll be walking around to make sure you hear kind voices, phrases, and encouragement from student to student as well.

Some great small group activities to help promote kindness and love, because students are needing to work together are circle activities, centers, and small group activities because students are able to see each other and work together by communicating with one another. Also music games are great because when a student isn’t the winner, have the students say phrases like “good game” or “good job” to encourage each other. 

How do you include love and kindness in your music classroom?  What are ways you use social emotional learning in the music classroom?  I’d love to hear all about it in the comments below or share your thoughts on social media as you share this post.

Also, I’d love for you to share this post or any of the resources on my website with a friend or colleague who you know NEEDS to see it.

P.S.  Are you feeling frustrated or stuck as an elementary music teacher?  Check out these free resources to help you teach elementary music with confidence!