7 Remote Lesson Planning Tips to Keep the Littles Learning and Laughing

When schools closed their doors across the country, the struggle and goal of many music teachers was trying to figure out how best to reach and teach their classes. After the first week of distance learning, I realized that I had forgotten about one of our critical demographics—the Pre-K classes. I sat down and tried to create a video that had a similar model to how our in person classes work. By attempting this, I was able to create some semblance of structure to my video lessons.

Most of my lessons follow the same basic structure:

1. Welcome Song: I use “ The Polish Welcome Song ,” which I learned from my friend, Dr. Rob Amchin. The melody is based on a Polish folk song and the text is by Dr. Amchin.
2. Vocal Warm-Up: I have a couple of puppets that I typically use for these vocal warm ups. In one school I use a ladybug named Lacey, and in the other school I use a baby dinosaur named Tiny. Unfortunately when the shutdown happened I only thought to grab two of the puppets at one school, so Tiny the dinosaur and Melody the hummingbird made the cut!
3. Movement Activity: I teach most of my lessons while sitting in a rocking chair in my “classroom” (see: guest bedroom…), so many of the movement activities are seated or I provide instructions on how to do them without demonstration. This is an area I hope to improve in the future, because it is so important to keep children moving. I incorporate so much movement into my normal Pre-K classes and am still working to try to make that successful in a distance learning model.
4. Play an Instrument: I know that many children don’t have access to traditional classroom instruments right now, so I’ve tried to keep things as simple as possible. “Find something you can shake in one hand,” to simulate an egg shaker or maraca, “find something you can tap on with two hands,” to simulate a drum, or “find something you can click together,” to simulate rhythm sticks. This not only provides the students opportunity for more engaging beat and rhythm activities, but it forces them (and their parents) to get creative with the items they can use as instruments!
5. Read a Story: I am a huge believer in incorporating literature into music classes. My Orff Schulwerk training has shown me that any story can become its own living, breathing performance. Almost every book I use in music lessons is one that I had as a child, or one that I purchased as a teacher and either aligns with the subject PreK teachers are currently working on with their classes or has a universally relevant and important message.
6. Sing a Song: The songs that I choose for this activity are typically folk songs that tie into the theme of the lesson. I try to pick songs that either have a simple melody or ones that involve some sort of student interaction, i.e., call and response or echo songs.
7. Mindfulness Activity: During the school year, our PreK classes went from 30 to 45 minutes and I needed to find ways to fill the time without overwhelming my students. I started incorporating a “Mindfulness Activity” to end each class to try to help relax the students before transitioning back to their classroom. In person, I was using the Calm App for the last 3 minutes of my music classes, but that did not translate as well to recording. So I started using Mindful Kids cards and chose the ones that fit into the theme of the lesson for the last part.

Incorporating Silliness and Real Life into Lessons

I think one of the most important parts about making these videos has been not taking myself too seriously. This is an opportunity for the younger children to feel some sense of normalcy throughout all of this and a perfectly planned and executed lesson is rarely normal—even in non-distance learning circumstances. Unless something goes totally awry, I record my lesson in one take. Even when things get messy (see: my puppy, Bear, physically attacking my puppet as I’m trying to do the vocal warm ups!) children love it because it’s real .

From this experience the two biggest things I have taken away are to have a plan and to be okay if that plan goes slightly awry. While it is definitely a different experience recording myself and not actually hearing or seeing my students interact, keeping a structure and a smile is a great way to make sure they know you are missing them and engaging with them.

“My daughter loves watching Ms. G’s music lessons. They are a great blend of singing, dancing, and storytelling to keep her engaged and excited to see the next lesson. Well after the lesson is over my daughter will sing the songs in the lessons around the house. She looks forward to her weekly lessons to see what Ms. G and her friends, Bear, Tiny, and Melody will be working on that week. Ms. G is a perfect blend of creativity, enthusiasm, and positivity and it shines through in her lessons each week.”—Danielle Massaro (parent)

“For my students the lessons brought them comfort of having consistency from in school instruction to online instruction. For many of them, their favorite part of the day is going to music class with you and being able to still do that from home has really brought them happiness. For my daughter being able to watch Ms. G’s class every week has given her something fun to add to her routine and she has started singing the songs around the house that she's learned from watching her videos. Whenever we watch the videos she smiles and waves saying, ‘Hi, Ms. G!’”—Kristin Novembre (Pre-K Teacher)

“They’re fun! I feel excited every week. My favorite part was the bumblebee song and I like the puppets! Thanks!”—Claire (student)