Engagement Through Songs & My 15 Minutes of Fame

I'm pretty sure I've been musical since birth. I recall stories from my mom about me as a toddler playing and Elvis Presley would come on the radio or TV and I would stop what I was doing and just dance. I remember riding in my dad's car and us just rocking out to Foreigner or Toto. I have held many a car concert and getting ready in the morning usually involves some upbeat playlist. If you look at my Spotify or Amazon Music, you will find a wide variety of playlists for different moods and settings. I even recall creating my own lyrics to songs based on whatever I was doing at the time or about my pets.

Fast forward to 2018 when AnnaMarie and I got the opportunity to visit Ron Clark Academy. This had been a dream of mine for several years. That's definitely another blog post for another day, but know that it is amazing and if you ever had the chance to visit, jump on it!

One of the many things we learned there was how to keep student engagement high through chants and content songs. We were 100% into it! Before we even got back to school, we were writing our first content based song. Since then we've written songs about comparing fractions, class mission statements, prime numbers and many more! Our students have even gotten involved. The key is embedding as much content into the song as possible and put the lyrics to popular songs that the kids know. My favorite part is when my students tell me that I've "ruined" their favorite song because they can no longer sing the old lyrics, only the ones we sing in class!

Click here to listen to our classes sing the nutrition song

So, what does all this have to do with my being famous? Well, when the coronavirus shut our school down, I decided to write a song about it. Another teacher submitted my video to a local news station and they interviewed me for a segment called "Teachers Getting Results." The story, linked here, aired and for a couple of days I actually did feel kind of famous. That fame has since died down, but my love for music is still going strong. My hope is that I can inspire other teachers to connect with their students through music.

Have you used music to connect with and engage your students? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Love you bunches,
Diana :)