The Thank You Song

Recently my principal asked for my kiddos to sing for a teacher appreciation event after school.  It took me awhile to figure out who I wanted to perform at this event (chorus, orff, a class, ASP kids) because of how close this event is to our spring concert.  We are 5 weeks away at this point and have not learned much of the music, yikes!

So finally I decided chorus would be easiest.  We could sing to a recorded track, learn it fast and they stay after school often to begin with, so I knew I would have less of an attendance problem.  My next dilemma was choosing a short, appropriate piece.  I knew I wanted something familiar to aid in learning the piece quickly but I wasn't happy with anything I had done before, I needed something fresh.  For inspiration I began searching YouTube for thank you/teacher appreciation songs and I came across this video of Nesbit Elementary School.

I liked the idea and I remembered my kids were already familiar with The Lazy Song (they were screaming along to Kidz Bop or some track like it at a non-music outdoor school event).  I must admit I feel a bit hypocritical.  Recently there was a post on best choral practices on Beth's Music Notes.  I loved these posts because, as a woodwind player, I feel as though I am continually improving in this area.  Anyway, I had responded to one of these posts in regards to using pop music in the elementary classroom.  I honestly don't use pop music in my classroom often, and when I do, it is usually not to sing.  You can read Beth's post to see some of the reasoning for this.  

Once I decided on this piece, I realized the lyrcis in Nesbit's version weren't quite right for our event, so I set myself to the task of lyric writing (not one of my favorite things to do).  After coming up with the chorus, I asked a couple of my super creative 4/5 kids to help finish the lyrics.  I am proud to say that they created the three verses and even tweaked a bit of the chorus to their liking.

Below is an image of the powerpoint I used to teach the lyrics.  It's nothing fancy, but if you would like to download it, request the document in the Freebies section.

You will notice I used 2 different colors.  That's because I had a duo perform the verses and the rest of my group sang the rest.  This was another time saver with my limited amount of rehearsal. 

Our staff loved the song!!!  The kids got a big kick out of how emotional some of their teacher's were.  I would say it was a success.