May the Fourth Be With You in #Elmused!
May 4th, a very popular day in elementary music over recent years to celebrate the play on the words, “May the Force be with you” from the popular Star Wars series, has been made famous now by the plethora of musical activities set up for that day by many amazing music educators. Plus, in the States, students write May 4th as 5/4, which also plays into Dave Brubeck’s song, Take Five, which is in a five meter.
To celebrate this day, I created a Wakelet of #elmused activities divided into the following categories:
Movement (Move-It) Activities
Parachute and Scarf Activities
Rhythm Play-Alongs
Boomwhacker Play-Alongs
Orff, Ukulele, and Recorder Play-Alongs
Music Creation Activities
Line Rider and Fun Videos
Lesson Resources (some paid and some free)
5/4 Extra Activities (involving Take Five)!
What is Wakelet?
Wakelet is a free, digital platform, that allows educators (and students) to create and easily organize various content for easy accessibility. Most of the content in this particular Wakelet are YouTube videos, with some png, websites, and Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) links. One of the best things about Wakelet is you can add a YouTube video to it and when you click on it in Wakelet, it will not leave the site. It will embed the YouTube video into the Wakelet so there will be no comments, no advertisements, and no additional videos being played or shown at the end. This is a very successful tool to use in the classroom.
Highlights From Each Category
Movement (Move-It) Activities
The first movement I would love to highlight is “A Star Wars (ish) Movement Activity” to the song Bright Suns (Oga’s Cantina) by Mus Kat & Nalpak, from the soundtrack to Oga's Cantina at Disney's Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. This movement activity is created by Dr. Missy Strong of Music Ed with Missy and Music Ed Amplified Podcast and performed by her and her son Owen. They perform movements that match the song’s form and phrasing. My preschoolers performed this one earlier this year and loved it! Their favorite part was watching the little animal move around the screen and then take over the screen at the end.
Another highlight is Andrea Engler’s The Mandalorian Move it which begins with a variety of recorders playing the introduction and then goes on to showcase Methacton General Music Teachers performing wonderful movements to the phrasing and form of the music. This is choreographed by Miranda Coghlan and Andrea Engler. There is also A Star Wars Move It created by Andrea, as well as a bonus Throne Room Move It coming on May 4th!
There are additional movement activities listed that involve steady beat movements that are great for all elementary age groups. Plus, a final one where you can have your students make up Disco dance moves to the Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band by Meco (1977).
Parachute and Scarf Activities
My students and I have two favorite activities from this category. The first one is the parachute activity created by South Carolina elementary music educator, and good friend, Cherie Herring. If you have a parachute, or can borrow one from the PE department, check out this video and perform these movements. They go wonderfully with the form to Star Wars!
The second one is The Star Wars Scarf Dance 2 from the Phys. Ed Review PE Channel by Kevin Tiller. Kevin is a PE teacher in Massachusetts and his students must adore him greatly because he creates content that is very fun and wonderful!
Rhythm Play-Alongs
There are a lot of rhythm play-along videos. In this category, they range from icons, to steady beat, to very basic rhythms for younger elementary, to very complex rhythms of sixteenth notes and triplets for older elementary music students. A couple of my favorites are from Debbie Farrington’s YouTube channel because she labels them mid- and upper-elementary and also gives suggestions to the grade levels the videos can be used.
Boomwhacker Play-Alongs
Another popular set of videos are the Boomwhacker play-along Star Wars videos. A highlight in this category is the ever-popular Musication Boomwhacker videos. One thing I do in my classroom is I take screenshots of the videos so that the students can practice the video before playing it with the accompaniment. The process I use with my students is to watch it once, then find the boomwhacker, then read and practice the screenshots, and finally perform it with the video. This way, I can assess their learning and prepare them to feel success when performing with the video.
Other highlights from this category are Musication’s gamified (in the style of guitar-hero) version of the Star Wars Theme and the slower version of the Star Wars Theme conducted by BB-8 and presented by the Music-CA YouTube channel.
Orff, Ukulele, and Recorder Play-Alongs
Two highlights from this category come from me and from my YouTube channel and Ashley Chiddix’s YouTube Channel. My video is a descant to the Star Wars Theme that can be played on the recorder using the notes G, A, and high D. I changed the key of the recording and slowed it down a tiny bit so that my third graders could perform the descant successfully. The video has a “follow the bouncy ball” feel as I used Google Slides red pointer to conduct the students (this was during the lockdown in 2020). My students loved performing this piece. If high D is too much to think about with young recorder players, try to have them play low D softly to promote their musicality. I also included a png file of the notation.
The other highlight from this category is Ashley’s Orff play-along video to the Star Wars Theme. I wish there were more videos like this out there. But, I love that I can use this one on May 4th!
Music Creation Activities
The Music Creation Category has Star Wars music created in Chrome Music Lab’s Song Maker. What I love about this is you could take the Cantina Band Song Maker and delete the drum parts. When you do this and save it, it will save as a new link. Send the new link to the students and have them create a drum part to the song. When they finish, have them save it and send the link back to you.
Line Rider and Fun Videos
This category features videos from Line Rider and various artists. Some favorites are Jimmy Fallon and The Roots singing the Star Wars Theme, Cello Wars from the Piano Guys, and Darth Vader performing the melody with boomwhackers by playing them on his helmet.
One highlight is Line Rider’s Star Wars Theme. Line Rider videos are a lot of fun to watch and can be a great ender to class time. You can also use them for higher-order thinking questions. These questions can range from a musical perspective such as, “How do the lines match the musical phrasing? Do they always match the musical phrasing? Are there musical items on the screen that you would find in a musical score (in The Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg there are musical symbols like dynamics found in the video)?” Or, you could ask non-music related higher-order thinking questions like, “How do you think this video was created? Why do you think the Line Rider videos choose these certain pieces of music for their videos? Do the lines change when the music changes? The editor wrote that it took him four months to create this video. What do you think this video involved to get it created in that amount of time?”
The other video I would like to highlight in this category is the video where a student and his teacher perform the Theme from Star Wars outside of John Williams’s home. When you watch the video, you find out that the teacher contacted John to get his permission to perform the duet (arranged by the 13-year-old student) outside his home so that they could record it. You also see John come wave from his front door and then come out to meet the two musicians. You can tell that this was not planned and the result is very sweet and a great memory for the student.
Lesson Resources (some paid and some free)
In this category, I include a TPT search of free and paid music lessons using Star Wars and also include sites, blog posts, and more free resources to use on May 4th. The one I would like to highlight is Katie Wardrobe’s Midnight Music’s Star Wars lessons using the Chrome Music Lab Songmaker. She gives you multiple levels to utilize the lesson from Padawan I (younger/elementary students) to Jedi Master II (for middle to high school or advanced students). She gives you a guide, slides, and a template file you can simply send as a link to your students. She created this in 2020. In 2021, she added a Choice Board Slides for the students. Another bonus from Katie in this category is she has created free printable scorecards for the Staff Wars app!
5/4 Extra Activities (involving Take Five)!
In the States, students can write the date on the top of their assignments as 5/4. This brings us to another musical connection for May 4th or 5/4 and that is Dave Brubeck’s song, Take Five, in the 5 meter. Therefore, this last category pays homage to Take Five.
There are two highlight from this category. The first is a body percussion play-along I created by slowing down Dave’s live recording and using Katie’s body percussion images to create the video. My students have enjoyed this video a lot, especially the improvisation portion!
The second highlight is from the Orff level I Belmont Class taught by Sue Ramsay. I believe that she had her husband record the song at a slower tempo so that the students could master it slowly before they had to perform the activity up to tempo. This is a great one for older elementary. My fourth graders love this activity on May 4th!
I hope that this inspires you and “May The Fourth Be With You!”
