Thinking about music…

I teach a new song each week (or sometimes week and a half). It is basically our warm up. They have a packet (don’t tell Jeff Bliss!) containing the lyrics of the song, a cloze activity, and sometimes I throw in a word cloud or other activity. They are also assigned about 10 words from the song that they have to know by the end of the week. Each day, they listen to the song, look at the lyrics, sing along if they like. On Thursday they do the cloze activity. On Friday they take a really easy quiz. They love learning the songs and the quiz is so easy they don’t mind that either.

Here are many of my music files:

Lots of times kids will suggest new songs to me, or request additional songs by certain artists! I love it!

So, I love music, my students love music, and it has become a non-negotiable part of the way my class operates. But I wonder…what if I stopped giving quizzes over the songs? What would happen? Would the kids stop listening? Would they be less likely to learn new words from the songs? Would they learn MORE? Would they like the music MORE?

I am asking for your feedback on this. What do you think? Should I try it? Should I do anything in place of the quizzes? Anything I should watch out for?

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for your comments!