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"All teachers integrate social and emotional learning (SEL) into their classroom lessons, whether they are aware of doing so or not." We use it everyday.

To incorporate brain-friendly practices in a middle school music classroom it is important to base your activities around active participation. We feel that musical activities should be as hands-on as possible. Brain-friendly practices should also include collaborative learning. Allow students the social connection of being able to work in groups, talk with each other through thought processes, and share their musical ideas and interpretations with each other.

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This activity can be used for any classroom. This worksheet could be used to express emotion to a song, or you could create an activity basesd on emotions felt from a topic.

Ex: Using emotion in our lessons

Identify what about the upcoming content will resonate with our students.

Express warmth and caring toward our students, create a calm and orderly environment for learning, get excited by a topic we're teaching, or joke and laugh with our students.

"All teachers integrate social and emotional learning (SEL) into their classroom lessons, whether they are aware of doing so or not."

Ex: Interactions with students

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This lesson gives students an opportunity to practice writing their emotions in a positive effective way while also giving them a chance to communicate these emotions with their peers.

Using the work sheet proveded, the students are able to identify their emotions with prompts to help put words to feelings. This helps them associate and find common ways to explain what they are feeling to others around them.

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Giving your students the opportunity to choose is exactly what it sounds like. In the classroom, it is important to create chances for students to make choices for themselves. This strategy of teaching helps students to decide what they need/want and make a decision based on their feelings. If students are being given choices to make when it comes to the classroom, you are teaching them to be responsible humans without telling them. This will help your students to begin to recognize what they need at the moment. Most students at the middle school level will not be able to recognize what they need and come up with solutions, but when you give them choices to make it will be very helpful. In All Learning Is Social and Emotional, we learn that "A student who has excellent content knowledge but poor social or problem-solving skills is a student at risk of being manipulated. Similarly, students who are able to predict possible consequences of their actions may be better equipped to make good decisions (p 8)." This helps us to understand that helping students learn problem-solving skills is just as important, if not more important than the content you're teaching.

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To give students an opportunity to choose in the choir/band rehearsal space, it is important to make sure you give them options and not just ask them what they want to do. If you asked your students what they wanted to do for rehearsal, it would be really difficult for them to decide because there are so many activities and so many songs. To give your students a choice you could say, "Today we are going to work on "-----," would you like to start in sectionals or full choir?" Or, "What section of the piece do you need most help on?" What I have found especially empowering for students is when you ask them what they need most help on. This strategy is most helpful when it is the week before your concert. After the rehearsal of a piece just ask your students, "What do you still need help on for this piece? I will use your input to form my rehearsal plan for tomorrow." When you ask your students what they need, they are allowed to decide what would be most helpful for them which teaches them to make responsible decisions. This example also helps your students to understand that their input matters in the rehearsal space.

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Giving your students the opportunity to choose connects to SEL through helping your students to set and achieve positive goals, recognize and manage emotions, and make responsible decisions. Teaching your students to make decisions will help them to understand what they need in any situation. When your students know what they need, they will be able to set and achieve positive goals because they are aware of what they need and how to get there. When they are sensitive to know what they need, they will also eventually learn to recognize their emotions.

This example of giving your students the opportunity to choose also connects to SEL because you are helping them to make responsible decisions. When you ask your students what they need help on, or if they want to start in sectionals, or even what piece they want to rehearse, you are helping them to learn how to make responsible decisions without them even realizing it. They are being given the opportunity to decide the track of the rehearsal, and the productiveness of their plan is dependent on what the students choose.

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For students to be able to take advantage of opportunities to choose in class, the students must have a developed self-awareness. Having self-awareness helps students to be able to know what they need, while learning, in relationships, and their own emotional and physical well-being. From All Learning Is Social and Emotional, we learn that having a developed self-awareness is something that happens over time and can increase and decrease depending on the circumstances. As teachers, we have a great opportunity to give students experiences that will help develop their self-awareness. Many students will come into your classroom with experiences that have shaped how they feel about themselves. Teachers are given the chance to help students create positive experiences for their students so that they can have true self-awareness.

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Have students reflect on a piece you are doing in choir/band. This would work best if the song has a deeper meaning that would be good to think deeply about. Have an open discussion about how the song makes them feel. First, give some background to the piece and tell your students that you want them to bring their own meaning to the piece and discover how they feel about it. Then, have them take a minute to write down their feelings about the piece. Next, split them into groups and have each student share if they are comfortable. Finally, return to largo group and ask students to share and open it up as a classroom discussion.

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Teaching your students how to become self-aware connects to SEL because you are helping them practice reflecting on their own feelings, values, and behaviors. When teachers incorporate self-awareness into their lessons, they are helping their students to gain identity and agency without them knowing it. This activity for self-awareness connects to SEL because the students are having to think about how they feel. A lot of music teachers talk about how a song make them feel with the intentions of impacting how their students perform the piece, however, it is most important to get your students thinking about how a piece makes them feel. Getting them to think about how a song makes them feel will also help them outside of the rehearsal space. If they are practicing identifying their

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Learning experiences outside of the "normal" practice is really important for students. It help's with student engagement and achievement. Examples of using other art forms in music could include; dance, drawing, sculpting, theatre and more gives opportunity of presenting, performing, and exploration. As a teacher it gives you opportunity to teach about other cultures and the meaning behind what they do as a community. You could also explore ways that art is used today and how it can apply to your everyday lives (TV, Radio, Movies, Live Entertainment, museums, Art Gallery, etc) and most students are involved in art classes, theatre, band, choir and more outside of your classroom. This gives you a choice to relate to other core and extracurricular activities.

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Peer learning is extremely impactful. It is important because it fosters academic, emotional, and social growth with students. Through peer learning, students develop crucial skills like collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and empathy. These are essential skills in a music setting and academic as a whole. But also for navigating social interactions and relationships. Peer learning helps create a supportive environment in all classrooms. Specifically in music classroom it is so important students feel comfortable asking questions, asking for help, and sharing their creative ideas, and it also leads to increased engagement and deeper learning.

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For peer learning connection it would work well to have students do a group project that always them to work together and learn from each other. When being introduced to a music history unit, after learning about different eras of music, the group can together choose a specific period they want to research. As a group they will be asked to learn as much as they can about these periods, like the instruments used, the style of the music, the kind of people who played, the kind of people you listened, and the composers. They will research the music of this era as a group, but then also pairs student within the group will pick a specific composer of the era during a class period, and then teach their group members who these composers are. Group members can compile these composers towards their end goal of the project. With having this aspect, it can really enforce students learning from each other and collaborating on a different level than just working in a group.

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By working together on this project the students learn to work with different perspectives and learn from each other. This can be a stepping stone to developing peer to peer empathy and also helps them build those social connections with their classmates. Not only does it impact relationship skills but it also affects their self management since they need to be able to communicate what needs to be done in a group project setting, but also make sure their tasks are completed because it will not only affect them, but also their whole group. This helps them begin to learn how to make responsible decisions as well. Overall, this activity heavily promotes the ability to work together and gives all the beneficial knowledge gained from those experiences in regards to Social and Emotional Learning.

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Time stamp 1:20 for directions 3:15 without directions

With approximately 3-4 minutes you will listen to multiple different types of sounds and draw how it makes you feel. Linked is a video of an artist showing her work as she plays music for you.

Other Classroom applications: You could focus on a specific topic and choose music that apply's to that subject. You can also apply it to mental health and have this be a resource and create or find Similar play lists to have as a resource.

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ART and MUSIC VIDEO: A guided drawing activity by listening to SOUND with Kerri Bevis #artlife​

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Giving the students the time to create something or use expression to show what they are hearing, playing, or singing can help them make personal connections. Especially when students are given a choice on what they are creating. Learning dances from different cultures teaches the students to respect others and reflect on what kind of experiences they have in their "culture". On the other hand, giving them freedom to express how they feel when they hear music to create a dance, drawing, painting, improvising music, etc, this gives them a sense of value to their own decisions and their peers with an opportunity of exploration.

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Giving students the opportunity to make connections from the curriculum to their lives outside of the classroom is important. Music helps break the barrier of language when working with others around the world. It gives people a reason to listen to your emotions that creates relationships and gives the musician control. Music gives life to a room and helps guide identity in different cultures. Performing for the community is also huge for the students and future students.

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Learning music from different cultures is really important. Not only understanding how to perform them, but understanding the meaning behind the music. Giving opportunity to express themselves through emotion and understanding the way their peers are also expressing themselves. Music also allows for introducing the talent of your students to the public. Going to nursing homes, performing concerts and advertising it to all people of the community, performing in malls, etc.

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Having a broad understanding of the subject at hand can be more engaging to students when they actually understand the whys. Giving opportunity for a wider range of exposer allows them to feel more comfortable. Allowing for self expression and exploration breaks down the barriers between other countries and communities.

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In a music classroom it is vital that students are able to apply metacognitive strategies in their learning, and be able to reflect on their thinking process. As educators we need to make sure we are implementing activities to utilize metacognitive strategies so students know how they learn and can independently know what works the best for them. Playing an instrument can be very challenging at times, and if students can use metacognitive strategies they will be able to use problem-solving skills when presented with hard music and be able to goal-set with their practice or progress.

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This would be a unit long or concert cycle long activity to do with students. Each day after music class the students would have an online journal to fill out. In this journal they would start by saying how the class day made them feel, and then write briefly about what they worked on that day and what they found challenging in the music and what went well for them. They would then write a couple strategies that they will use in their practice time to work on what is challenging for them. It would be good to initially help them with practice strategies so they have many options and can identify what works for them. They would also fill this journal out once a week or every two weeks after they independently practiced.

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Through this activity students are able to practice goal setting for themselves and learn how to begin problem solving in a musical setting. This also makes sure students are able to make their own decisions and see the consequences of them, good or bad.