Music Room with a Mountain View: Using Memes in the Music Room: Part Two

See the first part here.

I love using memes in my class. Kids are definitely exposed to them and love seeing ones they recognize. They are also a great and sneaky way to get kids to make connections. In order to get the joke, kids have to understand the concept the meme is about and be able to apply it to the given situation. Despite having a reputation of being only relevant to teenage geeks, memes are actually great learning tools.

About a year ago, I was spending a good portion of my free time on the internet, scrolling through any music meme I could get my hands on so I could use them with my kids. Kids loved them. The problem I kept running into was that what I found didn’t always fit what I wanted. I never made my own, though, because that just seemed so HARD.

I have a message for my past self: making a meme that is exactly what you want takes significantly less time than google image (or Pinterest) searching for hours and hours.

It’s surprisingly easy. All you have to do is go to a generator (I like this one) and search for a template image to use. Then you add your text.

I can haz piano?

Here’s what I did to make this one: I knew I wanted a meme for the dynamic piano, so I searched for “library” and a cute cat came up. Add in some text and you are done! If you need a specific picture, you can download it to your computer and upload it to the generator. I promise, it is super easy.

I use them as a quick, 1 minute review of our previous lesson’s concepts. Kids have to explain (in a complete sentence) what the joke is and what the term used in the meme means. It’s much more engaging, and more rigorous, than just repeating definitions.

Here are a few I’ve created so far.