Music In Our Schools Month® 2025

“United Through Music” Song Bracket

By NAfME Member Elizabeth Caldwell

This blog first appeared on the Organized Chaos blog.

This year the theme for Music In Our Schools Month® (MIOSM®) is “United through Music.” I have been doing a “musical March madness”-style song bracket, where students listen to different songs each day and vote on their favorites, for several years now, and for the last several years I’ve tried to tie the songs into the annual theme NAfME chooses. To connect with this year’s theme, I’ve decided to choose songs that are a fusion of two or more genres or musical styles.

This is the earliest that NAfME has ever shared their theme for MIOSM®, so I am so happy to have had more time to figure out the songs I wanted to use and share them with everyone! I admit I was a little disappointed at first when I saw the theme, though, because I did an entire playlist of songs focusing on unity/togetherness in 2023 for their theme that year, “Music Is All of Us”! If you didn’t use my song bracket that year, and you’d rather focus on lyrics with themes of unity, you can find that list of songs here. But then I had the idea to look for songs that bring multiple genres together, and I am so excited about all the new artists and songs I discovered in the process of putting this list together! I can’t wait to share these with my students and see what they think.

United through Music. Music In Our Schools Month song bracket 2025

As I have done the last few years, I’m going to be setting up Google slides files with the songs for each day embedded in the slides so that classes can vote in their homerooms. If you want to see how I organize the logistics so classes can vote every day regardless of whether they have music that day or not, check out my 2021 MIOSM post (and definitely let me know if you have any questions—I’m happy to help). Doing it in slides was such an easy way to have all the songs organized and make it easy for the homeroom teachers to report their class’s vote rather than having to email me every day! I don’t have the rights to share the song files, but you can make a copy of my slide templates and add the audio files yourself by clicking on the image below (it will automatically ask you if you want to make a copy)—here is a tutorial on setting it up in slides using the templates:

which song do you love more? Move the music note to the song your class picks. United Through Music logo.

In my song lists each year I try to include songs from different genres and time periods, representing artists of different backgrounds and including different languages, and this year is no different. You’ll find a blank slide template in the slides file linked above: I use that to show the lyrics in their original language and in the English translation for songs that are not in English.

Here are the songs I’ll be using in this year’s bracket (in no particular order):

The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Flogging Molly Celtic Punk

Reclamation by Brandee Younger Classical/ Hip-Hop/ Jazz/ Funk

Eso Que Tu Haces by Lido Pimienta Afro-Colombian/ electronic

Freedom by 12 Girls Band Chinese/ Turkish/ Pop

Storm by OTYKEN Indigenous Siberian/ Pop

Stomping Grounds by Bela Fleck and The Flecktones Bluegrass/ Jazz

Sally in the Garden/ Molly Put the Kettle On by Abigail Washburn and Friends Chinese/ Indian/ Appalachian

Upside Down by Funmilayo Afrobeat Orquestra Afrobeats (West African/ Jazz/ Funk)

Blue Flame by Simon Shaheen Arab/ Western Classical

Colour War by Ayanna Witter-Johnson Classical/ Jazz/ Pop

Living in the Past by Jethro Tull Classical/ Rock

Samba Em Preludio by Esperanza Spalding Samba/ Jazz

Inion by Afro Celt Sound System Colombian/ Korean/ Hindustani/ Campeta

Legends in the Making by Black Violin Classical/ Pop

Indigo by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble Jazz/ Funk

Saraiman by LADANIVA Armenian/ Romanian/ Jazz

Heyran by Mehdi Khosravi Iranian/ Classical/ Rock

MORENICA by Light in Babylon Israeli/ Turkish/ Iranian Alternative Ethnic Folk

LongMa by Nini Music Taiwanese Folk Metal

Brighter Days Come by Patty Gurdy Hurdy-Gurdy Folk-Pop

Járbă, máré járbă by Baba Yaga Romani/ Klezmer

Frantic Feathers by Archy J Celtic/ Bhangra

Mežāby Tautumeitas Latvian Folk/ Electronic

Compañera by MËSTIZA Spanish Folk/ Electronic

I’m excited to see how the students respond to this year’s playlist, and I’m curious to see which song wins out in the end! What are your plans for Music In Our Schools Month® this year? What are other songs that fit this theme? I’d love to hear more suggestions in the comments on my blog—I’m sure there are plenty more great ones out there. If you’re looking for more ideas to use for MIOSM, here are all my posts on the topic.

United through Music. Music In Our Schools Month song bracket 2025

About the author:

Meet the author Elizabeth Caldwell. Elizabeth is a mom to twin girls, elementary music teacher, and planner lover with a cross-cultural upbringing who loves giving music teachers the freedom to embrace the chaos of creativity through purposeful organization. Click here to learn more.NAfME member Elizabeth Caldwell has been teaching elementary general music and choir for over a decade and cannot imagine ever doing anything else. She is also the author of the website, Organized Chaos Music, where she regularly shares organization strategies, lesson plans, and other ideas to encourage purposeful creativity in the music classroom. She holds her B.M.E from Wheaton College (Illinois) and her M.M.E. from Boston University and was named Teacher of the Year in 2018. She has presented on lesson planning, restorative behavior management, effective recorder teaching, world music, National Core Arts general music standards, and other music education topics at conferences around the globe and teaches an e-course on lesson planning through her website.

Follow Elizabeth on FacebookInstagramTwitterYouTube, and Pinterest.

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The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) provides a number of forums for the sharing of information and opinion, including blogs and postings on our website, articles and columns in our magazines and journals, and postings to our Amplify member portal. Unless specifically noted, the views expressed in these media do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Association, its officers, or its employees.

January 2025 Teaching Music

Published Date

January 14, 2025

Category

  • NAfME News
  • Repertoire

Copyright

January 14, 2025. © National Association for Music Education (NAfME.org)

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