Are you looking for a song to include in your elementary lesson plans for February?   Here are a few of my favorites Valentine songs for elementary music!

Valentine

I wrote Valentine a few years ago while looking for a play party type song for Valentine’s Day.  How many times have your classes come to music right after a classroom party around Valentine’s Day.  Sugar is in control and you just need a quick and easy game to play with kids?  This is your song!  Play it just like “Duck, Duck, Goose.”  If you’re not a fan of those types of games in music, have one student hide their eyes while sitting in the center of circle. Then tap a student to sing the ending phrase “pick me”. At the end of the song, the child in the center guess who sane the phrase “pick me!”

You Will Never Find Me

This tune comes from the Jump Right In series by GIA Publications.  This series centers on using Music Learning Theory in the elementary music classroom.  Here are some of the ways you can use this song instructionally:

• Minor tonality – sing minor tonal patterns between repetitions of the song to build vocabulary
• Duple meter – discuss how Duple meter always divides into 2, discuss the role of tempo in meter (doesn’t change the meter, but does change the macrobeat placement)
• Form – AB form (discuss how the sections are different
• Play Party – students sit in a circle formation and play game similar to “Duck, Duck, Goose”

Copyright GIA Publications.  Used with permission.

Will You Be My Valentine

This song is such a gem for beginner folk dance!  I teach this dance over the course of several class periods.

• Step 1: Teach the song,
• Step 2: Teach the steps of the dance in a large group setting
  • Heel, toe on the line – extend right leg out with heel to the floor, then point toes to the floor, then bring the foot back into rest position
  • Will You Be My Valentine – use arms & hands in a pleading motion as you change places with a partner
  • Heel, toe on the line – extend left leg out with heel to the floor, then point toes to the floor, then bring the foot back into rest position
  • Maybe “ja” or maybe “nein” – nod yes, then nod no.  On “nein” partners turn their backs to one another
• Step 3: Do the dance with a partner.  This is a little cumbersome because they are going to restart their formation each time but it’s important to do this step before doing the full dance.
• Step 4: Do the full dance with students changing partners each time they do the dance.  The trick to students doing this dance successfully is making sure they switch places with their partner on “Will you be my valentine?”

Love Somebody

This is such a lovely little folk song and has so many ways you can adapt the song for any grade or level of learning!

• Resting tone – use a squishy ball to toss in the air (whole class response) or to students (individual response) for students to sing the resting (home) tone
• Major tonality – sing major tonal patterns between repetitions of the song
• Major tonic – have students listen to the song and identify each time they hear the major tonic pattern “Do-Mi-So” within the song
• Mix it up – have students suggest another way to sing a major tonic patterns (e.g. “Mi-So-Do”) and sing it in replacement of the original pattern in the song
• Minor Mix Up – older students who have experience singing and identifying minor tonality could play with moving the song to minor instead of major
• Partial Synthesis Play – sing phrases of the song in major or minor tonality and have students sing the corresponding resting tone to the phrase
• Read it, Write it – if students have the readiness, you could show students how to read a major tonic pattern and practice reading inversions of major tonic.  Model how to write the pattern in subsequent classes

You are My Sunshine

This is such a classic folk tune and feels like a “must learn” song for every elementary student.  Plus it’s a great tune to add to a little chord root harmony to with voices, Orff instruments, or boomwhackers!