Looking for engaging and fun websites to use with your upper elementary students? Technology can be a fantastic way to introduce creativity and exploration in the music room, and to engage your fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Here are some websites that are perfect for your upper elementary classes.
Isle of Tune
Isle of Tune is a super creative website where students can design their own musical town. Each road is like a music track, and objects like houses, trees, and streetlights play different sounds when cars drive past them. It’s a fun way for students to experiment with composition while also exploring melody and rhythm.
How to Use It: After introducing the basics of composition, have students create their own “town songs.” You could have students explore how the elements of music (like rhythm, pitch, etc.) change their road, and thus, their composition.
Paint With Music
Your students will love Paint with Music. This site lets them “paint” colorful pictures that turn into music. Each color represents a different sound or instrument, so the picture becomes a musical composition!
How to Use It: Let students choose a setting, then create melodies or vocal explorations, then add as many ostinati/ loops as they’d like (with the stamp.)
Seeing Music
Seeing Music is an awesome tool for vocal exploration. Students can sing or make sounds into the microphone, and the site transforms their voices into moving, colorful visuals. It’s a hit for introducing vocal warm-ups or exploring dynamics and pitch!
How to Use It: Use Seeing Music as part of your vocal exploration activities. Have soloists perform their own vocal exploration to see how it is displayed, and play around with the visualization menu for different ways to view each.
Sound Canvas
Similar to Seeing Music, Sound Canvas combines voice and visual art. Students use their voices to “paint” on a digital canvas. It’s a great way to explore vocal timbre while creating abstract art at the same time.
How to Use It: Again, you could use Sound Canvas as part of your vocal exploration activities. Have volunteers come up to the board to create their own pathway, or use the camera function to have students create vocal exploration pathways with their bodies! This can be a good way to have upper elementary students explore their voices, in a way that doesn’t make them feel self-conscious.
Beast Box
Beast Box is such a unique tool. It allows students to create music using animal sounds! They can mix and match the calls of different creatures, layering them to create rhythmic patterns and melodies. It’s a good alternative to Incredibox.
How to Use It: Use Beast Box as a whole group, to create a composition, or in centers, with the students in each group taking turns adding or taking away animals.
In conclusion...
Each of these websites offers something different, whether it’s composing, vocal exploration, or connecting music to other subjects. They’re easy to use, fun for students, and bring a fresh, creative element to your music lessons.
Have you used any of these tools in your classroom? Or do you have a favorite music website that your students love? I’d love to hear about it—leave a comment below!
