Sometimes, you’ll get a class that has more students in it than normal. Or, there might be a certain day you’re asked to combine classes since a teacher on your electives team is out for the day. It gets a little overwhelming trying to teach that many students and it’s easy to feel stuck. I’ve been there and done that and know how much it feels like you’re herding cats. If you’re needing ideas for teaching a larger class size, this blog post (and episode 218 of The Elementary Music Teacher podcast) will share the exact strategies that worked for me.
Stay flexible with lesson planning
When teaching music to a large class, you won’t have as much space to plan for the activities you normally would. That’s why it’s important to stay flexible and to adapt and adjust your plans accordingly. When it comes to lesson planning, think through the concepts first, then what activities you’ll want to plug in.
Then, literally sit down and write out how you can still do the song, game, instrument activity, or whatever else, but just in a modified way. Just like with any other planning, think about your students and what they need. Then, of course you’ll need to think through the space you have to teach to what your students need. If a lesson plan fails, take the time to think about why or what could have gone differently for next time.
Classroom management ideas
Have a solid classroom management plan in place and have a plan for what happens in your music room from the time students come in to when they leave. When teaching to a lot of students at once, you’re going to want to keep things as seamless as possible for yourself and for your students. Be okay with the chaos and the noise and just accept that it will be a bit louder than it would with a smaller class of students.
For seating, you may normally do something like 4 rows in the music room. When teaching music to a large class, you could now do an A side and a B side with 4 rows in each while you stand in the middle. When doing circles, the A group and the B group each make their own circle and view it like you’re teaching 2 classes at the same time. For small group activities, have larger groups. So, instead of 4-5 students, make them 7-8 and assign 2 students a role instead of just 1. Also, partner work can now become small group work. Remember, it all goes back to staying flexible and adapting and adjusting when needed.
How to do movement activities
If you don’t have room for a folk dance with the whole class, can you modify the dance where students are moving while staying in their seat or in small groups. Think about also if there’s a way you could do the dance outside or in a hallway. Can you have students learn the parts of the dance that don’t involve dancing down the middle and then show them a video of the rest of the dance to learn at home? Or, could half of the class learn the dance like to “Alabama Gal” as it’s written while the rest of the class is doing some kind of instrument ostinato or body percussion ostinato underneath the song?
Movement activities will be a bit tricky when teaching music to a large class, but it’s not impossible. Think of it more in the terms of small group activities instead of whole class activities. Also, know that trial and error is a huge part of what’s happening when teaching a lot of students at once. You’ll eventually find your stride and works for you.
Using instruments with lots of students
It’s okay if everyone doesn’t have an instrument. Students can share and whoever doesn’t have an instrument can still do body percussion and then partners can trade. Do center activities where students are getting to do instruments if it’s their turn to do them in that rotation. If you’re teaching a speech piece or doing a composition or improvisation activity, students can always rotate parts as well.
When I didn’t have enough class instruments, these are the exact things I did so all students were doing something. They can rotate parts or just keep track of who got to play an instrument, so the next time students are getting to do a different part.
Have you taught music to a large class size? Tell me about it in the comments below or share your thoughts on social media as you share this post. 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 too.
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!
Also…I wrote a book called “Make A Note: What You Really Need To Know About Teaching Elementary Music” to help music teachers move forward in your teaching career. You can get your copy here.
