Alphabet Themed Lesson Ideas for the Elementary Music Classroom
March 10, 2023This post may contain affiliate links. You pay the same and I get a small commission
At my school, there is a big push to incorporate classroom standards into specials classes. So, one of my favorite ways to do this is to teach an alphabet themed lesson for my younger students!
Warmup
To begin the alphabet themed lesson, I like to get the class moving and their brains energized, I start the class with this video from the Learning Station! The kids love it – and it’s a great way to strengthen their call-and-response skills.
Alphabet Song
One of the reasons that the alphabet is an easy crossover is because there is a built-in alphabet song! Most of my students know the alphabet song and are excited to sing it! After we review the song and make sure that everyone knows it, we use our four different voices to sing the song. I usually call on students to choose which voice they want to sing the song in (whisper, talk, shout/call, sing). If we’re feeling really funky, we even use different voices for each line!
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Another reason I love this lesson – it involves a book! I love using books in my music lessons, and the kids love it too! I begin this part of the lesson by reading Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault’s Chicka Chicka Boom Boom book.
After we read the book, we play a game using a song with tune “Skip to My Lou.”
Dare Double Dare You Can’t Catch Me (to the tune of “Skip to My Lou”)
Dare, double dare you can’t catch me
Dare, double dare you can’t catch me
Dare, double dare you can’t catch me
I’ll beat you to the top of the coconut tree!
A, B, C, D, E, F, G
H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P
Q, R, S and T, U, V
W, X, Y, and Z!
After teaching the songs to the students, we play a game where the students guess which letter I am “chasing.” The students should sing the song all together. Once we sing the song, the teacher should say two or three words that start with the same letter, e.g. “tiger” and “top.” Students would then say that we were chasing the letter “t.”
To make it even more fun, students could be holding different letters and whoever has the letter has been caught and must turn in their letter. Another variation is to match the lowercase letter with the Uppercase letter. Whoever has the letter that matches has been caught. Here is a link to some free alphabet flashcards if you need them!
Dare Double Dare Chasing Game!
Then, we play another game with the Dare Double Dare song! This game is similar to Duck, Duck Goose! Students sit in a circle. While singing, one student goes around the circle on the “ABC” part of the song. On the letter Z, they touch the student they are closest to on the head. Whoever they touch on the head must try to tag them before the first child (IT) sits in that child’s spot. While they chase each other, everyone should sing the “Dare, double dare” section of the song!
Xylophone Improvisation
Okay – this is my favorite part of the lesson! Chicka Chicka Boom Boom has lots of opportunities for xylophone improvisation. I like to go through each line of the book and ask students to come up and show me how that line might sound on the xylophone. I even tell my students to image that the xylophone is a tree and the big bars are the roots and the small bars are the branches. That way they can climb up the tree and down the tree! There are also a lot of fun words that can be interpreted on the xylophone – “flip, flop, flee” and “wiggle, jiggle free!”
Thank you so much for reading! I hope that if you use this alphabet themed lesson, or bits and pieces of it – your students enjoy it as much as mine do!
If you are interested, I have a lesson pack that includes a powerpoint for the lesson! You can purchase that here! I also have another post that features more songs about Chicka Chicka Boom Boom here!
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