5th Grade Promotion Mash-up

Hi everyone!

    As indicated in my last post, my 5th graders have been rather challenging this year, so you can imagine I was a little daunted by the task of choosing a song for their Promotion in June. Instead of just picking a song and making everyone learn it (which would have been painful, to say the least), I decided that I would ask the students for suggestions. I got a whole range of song choices, from Jackson 5 to Macklemore, Drake, and other pop artists. I also allowed them to listen to some songs that I thought were fitting for "graduation"-type events. After all of this, we voted for the song we were ultimately going to learn.

     Here's where it got even harder: the majority of the votes were for One Direction's "Live While We're Young." While the song has an appropriate theme for this event, I knew that half of my students were not going to be happy with the choice and that it would be like pulling teeth to try teach it to them. So I compromised. I took 6 of their songs ideas and made a mash-up/medley for the promotion ceremony.

     The mash-up includes: Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield, Friends Forever by Vitamin C, ABC by the Jackson 5, Live While We're Young by One Direction, Home by Phillip Phillips, and Shooting Star by Owl City. The last part is my favorite because it correlates directly with our mascot- the All-Star. Here is the karaoke video:

     I created a this video for the students to learn it in my classroom and gave it (as well as a hard copy of the lyrics) to their teachers for in-class practice. Feel free to take ideas from it.

The students have taken ownership of this song for the ceremony, and I think it will be a great send-off for them!