Child-friendly pop music lesson concepts
A simple way to include pop music in your music lessons is with a movement activity. With my K-2 students, I like to do an activity called “Follow me.” For this, I have students follow my beat motions. I typically do a beat motion (i.e. tapping my head, tapping my shoulders, jumping up and down) for 8 beats, then move onto another motion, and students follow me. If students are comfortable keeping the beat, about halfway through the song, I ask for volunteers to lead the beat motions. Super fun!With my upper elementary students, I’ve done an activity called “Head Shoulders.” For this activity, you have six words on the board, such as “Head/ Shoulders/ Hammer/ Chicken/ Knees/ Toes.” (For hammer, students make fists with their hands and hit them on top of each other, and for chicken, students flap their arms like a chicken.) Students do each beat motion for 16 beats while listening to a song, then they do the beat motions for 8, then 4, then 2, then 1, so that each time they half the amount of the beat motions. It’s very fun at the end when we only do 1 beat on each motion! Then, they can repeat. Students can suggest new beat motions, so they have voice and choice, and you can do it again!
