Submitted by Amy Candland, Bellingham, Washington

Idea posted May 2, 2003

Question: I am interested in creating a unit for third grade students that culminates in the rewriting of the words for "The Bare Necessities" to make a school song. What I would like to do is teach about song writing, about using an old tune to write a new song, and then have a contest to have a new school song written by students. Are there suggestions that you might have for this unit?

Answer: I had my 5th and 6th graders write lyrics for a school song last year. It took several lessons but the outcome was great! We rewrote the words to "We Rock!" (from Music K-8, Vol. 11, No. 5). Here's what we did:

  1. Listen to the song as written, sing through several times.
  2. Talk about as a class what was special about our school, what things a school song should include...
  3. Individually, or with partners, write several sentences about our school.
  4. Join with another partnership and share what was written.
  5. Listen to the song again, find where the sentences fit - or rewrite so they will fit. (they each had a lyric sheet of the original words with space underneath to write own ideas)
  6. Hand in. I went through and took the best ideas for each part of the song and combined into one class song.
  7. We did this in four classes, each class had a song with their lyrics put together.
  8. I made copies of each song and we sung through all four versions, talking about what we liked from each one.
  9. Voted on the top two; a few changes made to incorporate great lines from other two versions....
  10. Sang through final two - voted - school song was done! (and it was fantastic!)