Is elementary music today taught differently than it was 40 years ago? What do you remember from your elementary music classes? Do you remember singing songs from songbooks? Having tambourines, triangles and hand drums to play? Doing the Maypole dance? Listening to music of famous composers? Over the years music classes have evolved to include not only singing songs, but also playing song games or barred instruments, dancing to folk music and listening to a wide variety of genres while being as interactive as possible.

We as kindergarten through fourth grade music teachers in Marshalltown are working to prepare your children to appreciate music as it appears in their day to day lives.  Music is a vital part of a child’s education – it teaches them to feel, listen, experience, compose, analyze and share with their classmates in creating music together as an ensemble.

We desire our students to be tuneful, beatful and artful when they leave fourth grade. One day they will be able to dance at their wedding, sing a lullaby to their children, sing nursery rhymes and play song games with their children, appreciate going to community concerts of orchestras, choruses and bands, attend and appreciate Broadway musicals and plays and be accepting and respectful of music from other cultures around the world. How can this happen? It starts with listening skills in kindergarten.

One of the hardest skills for kindergartners to master is to listen first without singing along with the teacher. It may take a while, but it is instrumental to their development as a beginning musician. We sing nursery rhyme songs and easy echo songs with the children, and have them listen to songs that tell stories to begin identifying musical opposites of fast/slow, high/low, loud/quiet, short/long, same/different (looking for patterns) and smooth/bumpy. These terms form a common musical vocabulary that students can refer to throughout their time in the Marshalltown Community School District.

As students they also begin creating musical ideas by making choices for changing actions or words in their songs and using scarves to express the musical opposites they hear. They learn how to make a circle, play stationary circle games and advance to moving circle games and trading partners.  We also focus on keeping a steady beat, singing together and singing alone. We have many different hand held instruments, stretchy bands, barred instruments (referred to as Orff instruments) drums, guiros, egg shakers, maracas, cabasas and tapping sticks to give them opportunities to try multiple instruments and start developing an ear for playing together to make beautiful music.

Every music teacher’s greatest joy is to have our students (later in life) hear a song or experience music that in some way brings back a memory or a connection to something from their time in elementary music class, a memory that would bring the music to life for them. Music can make you feel happy when you are sad. It can spur your soul to great accomplishments. Music calls for a response because music is an art form that elicits an emotional response from its listeners and its performers to make it come to life.  

Have you experienced any music today that spoke to your heart?

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Jolene Kubli is music teacher at

Franklin Elementary School and Rogers

Elementary School in Marshalltown.