Transitioning With Music

I've spent much of this afternoon trying to work out some of the details for my classroom management plan for next year. One thing that I am absolutely a FIRM believer in is using music for transitions. When I was student teaching, my mentor teacher used music for every transition and our 2nd graders transitioned smoothly every time. This is something I've done successfully in high school and elementary school and I am pretty sure it's a staple in my classroom.

I try to change up the songs every year (more for myself because I get bored with the songs after a year!) and spend some time over summer trying to find more songs to use.

Here is what I've come up with so far for next year (and the links to Youtube videos for the songs, though I would suggest downloading the mp3 files from iTunes or something if your school's internet is as slow as mine can be sometimes):

• Entering the Classroom - I personally prefer more upbeat, positive songs for when my kids enter the classroom
• Walking on Sunshine
• Best Day of My Life  
• Build Me Up, Buttercup 
• Happy
• Brave
• Short Tasks - I LOVE TV/game show themes for quick tasks (1-3 minutes) and I've found that they really energize and engage my kids. They're motivated to stay on task because they can actually hear the end as opposed to having to keep looking up at a timer.
• Mission Impossible – 1 Minute
• Happy Days - about 1 minute
• Partridge Family  - about 1 minute
• Family Feud - almost 2 minutes
• Price Is Right - 1 minute
• Super Password - 2 minutes
• Jeopardy Song - 30 seconds
• Exiting the Classroom - I like for these songs to have an inspiring message for my kids to leave with. My 4th graders last year loved Hall of Fame (it may or may not have helped that I had an actual Hall of Fame in my room...more on that later)!
• Think Good Thoughts
• Hall of Fame 
• Fireflies
• Strength, Courage, and Wisdom 
• Don't Stop Believin' 
• Here Comes The Sun
• Lovely Day 
• Roar 
• Good Life (this is the song we used in my student teaching class...LOVE!)
• Working Time - I started a separate Pandora account just for classroom music. I have a mix of soft, instrumental music and kid-friendly pop or Disney music on there. Depending on if we need a burst of energy or a a LOT of chill, I'll pick one of these stations. If you're worried about the lyrics being clean, there is a setting on Pandora to filter out explicit lyrics. You shouldn't run into that problem with any of these stations, but you can never be too sure :)
• Tween Radio
• Let It Go Radio
• The Vitamin String Quartet
• 2cellos Radio
• Classical for Studying
• Calming Rain with Piano Radio
• Lorie Line Radio
• Smooth Jazz Radio
• Black Violin Radio
• Instrumental Quarter Radio
• Disney Radio
• Kenny G Radio
• Kidz Bop Kids Radio
• The Piano Guys Radio
• India.Arie Radio 
• Pentatonix Radio

I'd suggest using the same songs for consistent procedures (things that happen daily no matter what - such as entry, exit, packing up, beginning each new subject, etc.) all year or change them only at the start of a new semester. Your goal is to make sure the kids know and recognize the song so that they get moving and know what to do the MOMENT the song starts to play. This is much easier to do if the song for consistent procedures stays the same. When you're picking a song, think about how long the kids will reasonably need to do all that you're asking them to do during that procedure. You don't want to have a song that is too long so they end up with idle time and you definitely don't want it to be too short.

With the shorter transitions (maybe they're rotating to centers or talking with a partner/group), let them know how much time they have and let them know they need to be listening for the song to end. Kids are really good at hearing when a song is starting to wind down. Another option is to use the same 1 or 2 songs for this, if you choose.

Do you use music to help your students transition? What songs do YOU like? Let me know!