Overview:
A music-class “soft start” routine helped transform chaotic post-gym transitions into focused learning time, saving instructional minutes and accelerating student musical growth across grade levels.
I think we can all collectively agree that trying to teach to students still fixated about who won or lost (or cheated) in their most recent athletic endeavor in gym class is not only time-consuming, but also teeth-gritting and nerve-fraying.
As an elementary music teacher, 50% of the students I teach each day are coming to the music classroom straight from gym class, and the transition has proved a difficult task for many students to handle and nearly impossible for myself to manage effectively in a timely manner. In my short, 30-minute time frame with them, a minimum of five minutes were eaten away with guiding conflict-resolution conversations between students, explaining the plan for our music class, and getting into the music mindset. That was 17% of my time with them already gone. As a first-year teacher, it felt like such a loss of momentum, and the feeling of being unable to serve my students to the best of my ability was eating at me. Moving into year two, I knew it was time for a change.
During the initial brainstorming stage, I identified an existing pedagogical framework already being used at my elementary school in the general classrooms: soft starts. These activities vary from grade to grade, but can include something that is a low-stress, student-directed activity that is purposeful in helping them transition into learning. Students engage in this at the beginning of the day for the purpose of regulating oneself to the classroom and easing into the day. One source that I found upon digging deep into soft-start pros and cons states that, “Giving students time to transition into the day allows them to settle emotionally and mentally, making them more ready to focus when formal lessons begin…A consistent soft start routine helps students to know what to expect each day, which can create a sense of security and stability,” (Watson, 2024). Upon reading this, I knew that this sort of structure at the beginning of music class was exactly what my students needed.
Obviously a soft-start in the music classroom is not going to look the same as it does in a general classroom. When my music students walk into the music classroom, they are directed to sit on risers that face the TV in my classroom. On this screen, they will find three main boxes to guide them through their soft-start. In the first box, they will see a word review, which asks some sort of question that reviews musical vocabulary or practices from their last music class. In the middle box, they will see a rhythm review. This is adjusted to suit each grade level at their ability level. For example, my 4th-graders are given two different rhythms to count and pat on their lap with variations of half notes, quarter notes, quarter rests, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes while my 1st-graders are given a variation of short and long circles to clap and say “ta” and “ti-ti” with.
Of course, you will have to meet your students where they are at and grow in difficulty from there. In the third box, students will see a box that simply states what we are doing today. This not only gives them an idea of what to expect, but it also saves me from answering that question about 80 times in the first five minutes of class. While using a warm-up slide on my TV is how I structure my soft-start, it is important to note that what works for me might not work for someone else’s music classroom. I am simply sharing what works for me so far.
This holistic approach to starting music with a soft start has had an immensely positive impact on both my students and the structure of my music lessons. Obviously, it has taken a lot of practice and needed a lot of reminders, as does any new routine in the classroom. It’s safe to say, though, that the results are worth it. Starting class takes me about two minutes now, in comparison to at least five, and when I’m walking into the music room, the majority of students are already on task, engaging in their soft start warm-up. Not only is this a way to jump-start learning, but it gently shifts the students’ mindset from wherever they are coming from, to music. My students who used to come in dysregulated from gym class are now coming in looking for their warm-up task, and boy, do they let me know if I’ve forgotten to put it up on the board for them!
This new routine has also produced some unexpected benefits for student progress this year. My 4th-graders who were working with ta and ti-ti rhythms at the beginning of this year (and most of last year) can successfully read, count, and perform rhythms with any variety of half notes, quarter notes, quarter rests, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes independently, demonstrating quick skill retrieval and high musical automaticity. My 1st-graders who struggled with short and long rhythms at the beginning of this year are now reading ta and ti-ti rhythms on different solfege syllables…all by themselves!
Obviously I saw progress in my students’ musical skills last year, but with the addition of a rhythmic warm-up at the beginning of every music class, students across all grade levels have surpassed the growth they made throughout the entirety of our last school year in just two short months. Across all grade levels (first through fifth grade) what they could read rhythmically by June is now being accomplished by early November. So not only is a warm-up slide a helpful tool to soft-start engagement in the music classroom, but it is a tool of powerful growth. Now that I’ve seen success in using a soft-start in the music classroom, I’m eager to try experimenting with potential expansions, such as 1-minute stations in 4 corners for the word review or small group rotations at different handheld instruments for the rhythm review.
Using a soft-start will be something I intend on using for the rest of my career, as it is not only engaging and growth-structured for my students, but it emphasizes regulation, respect, and readiness for learning across all content areas. If you’re looking for a structure that matches what I already use, one option is to visit my Teacher’s Pay Teacher’s Store, Elizabeth’s Music Corner, where you can find a template of the slides I use for my students along with some example slides of how I set them up to prepare my students for success.
References
Watson, A. (2024, September 29). Soft starts: A gentle way to begin the school day. Truth For Teachers. https://truthforteachers.com/truth-for-teachers-podcast/soft-starts-a-gentle-inviting-way-to-begin-the-school-day/#:~:text=1.,warm%20and%20welcoming%20classroom%20environment.
Love this!
This is such a smart approach! Those post-gym transitions are brutal—I completely relate to the “teeth-gritting” feeling. I’m curious: what specific musical activity do you find most effective for pulling students into that focused “soft start” mindset right away?