194 | 5 Low-Stress Ways to Learn Student Names Fast

Learning student names isn’t just a classroom management strategy; it’s a powerful way to build trust, connection, and community from day one. In this episode, Bryson shares five practical, low-stress ways to confidently learn student names, even when teaching hundreds of kids each week. It’s all about starting strong and showing students they matter, one name at a time.

Episode Chapters:

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:34 Seating Chart with Pictures
• 4:16 Name Tags
• 5:58 Name Games
• 7:58 Direct Name-Learning Activities
• 9:00 Use their name whenever possible
• 9:55 Takeaways

Links and Resources: 

• The Elementary Music Summit®
• Elementary Newbie Guide
• Disabilities Guide
• Steady Beat Survival Guide
• Join Elementary Music EDGE™
• Download Idoceo

Have questions or want to share feedback? Reach out to us at hello@thatmusicteacher.com - we’d love to hear from you!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:34 Seating Chart with Pictures
• 4:16 Name Tags
• 5:58 Name Games
• 7:58 Direct Name-Learning Activities
• 9:00 Use their name whenever possible
• 9:55 Takeaways

Transcript

Bryson Tarbet: 0:00

Name, name what's in a name. Come to find out a lot. You are listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tart, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher in the elementary music summit each week. Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found@thatmusicteacher.com. I remember my first year of teaching and I walked in and I didn't know a single one of my students' names. Uh, and as an elementary music teacher, we have hundreds. Uh, and let's be honest, there's so much to names you know, about just giving someone an identity and helping them just feel like a place in your classroom. But also there's like a logistical side of just. Classroom management without names is really, really hard. Uh, so today we're gonna talk a little bit about both of those reasons why it's important for us to learn the names of our students as teachers, um, but also some practical strategies, five of them actually, um, to actually do that. Um, because once you learn student names, classroom management is easier, building relationships is a lot easier. Um, and until you do that, it's really tricky to do any of those things. Uh, so that's gonna, we're gonna be talking about today. So before we get any farther, I want to be in incredibly clear, um, that it is so important for us to know the names of our students, um, to pronounce them correctly, to remember them. Um, it's, it's one of those things that honestly, I would pause my curriculum for a month if I needed to. To learn names because I think it's just gonna be that much. You we're gonna get so much farther down the road in our curriculum, having built that relationship, having my students understand that I care about them enough to do that. Um, so like, let's, let's, I hope we're all in agreement that names, we're not just making kids names up, we're not giving them nicknames if they don't ask for one. Um, we are going to try our hardest to remember their names and when we don't. Be honest about it. Just be like, Hey, I'm so sorry. I forgot your name. Can you remind me? Um, show, show that we're trying and try. So let's go into five. Practical ways to learn and remember student names. The first strategy I have for you is actually, I think kind of easy depending on what your school software looks like. Um, and that's, that's to do some sort of seating chart with pictures of their faces. Um, I know for me, my school district, we always use progress book, um, and they had that. Capability kind of baked into it. Um, and it would actually pull in their school pictures from last year. So I only needed to essentially find pictures of any new students and the kindergartners. Um, so by doing that, I was able to really make a connection. Name to face. I was able to. Kind of understand, all right, well, Johnny's gonna be in this area when we're, you know, when we're in this zone, this is where Johnny's gonna be sitting. Um, and things like that. I think that is a really, really important, uh, really simple way actually to, to start learning our student names. Now, I'll be honest, I rarely did seating charts beyond the first month or so school. Uh, for me it was just too much for me to juggle. And I had other classroom management mechanisms in, um, for most of my classes, um, that they didn't need assigned seats, and then that was fine. Um. But you know, if you're someone that wants to assign seats the whole year, especially giving them a home base, go for it. But I think using a seating chart with faces is great. And I will say now that I'm kind of in the, the world of subbing, again, having seating charts with faces is really helpful for your subs as well. So here's your actionable tip for strategy one. Uh, plan some time in your first week to create a seating chart or, um, access one if it already exists, right? So sometimes you might be able to log into your software, um, if your school software doesn't have anything like that, um, there's a great iPad app called Ido Ioio. I don't know how to pronounce it. Um, but that's pretty good. I bought that my first year of teaching and I've used it kind of nonstop since strategy two is a little bit more. Um, upkeep or kind of set up, I guess. Um, but this is something that I did my first year with all of my students. Uh, and then I continued every year with kindergarten, which is name tags. Um, this, I think for me, I'm such a visual learner. Being able to look at Susie and see Susie's face and her name, um, was really helpful for me. Um, and be, I did the first few lessons. I would ha I would do that. I would have the students wear their name tags. Um, and I think it was really helpful. Because I, again, I, I could call them by their name even though I didn't know their name because it was literally right in front of it, even when we were up and moving, doing a game or things like that. Um, so there are different types. Um, obviously, you know, having something on a lanyard, having just a sticker. Um, and here are some tips. So, first of all, reach out to the, the, the, the classroom teachers and just first of all. Do they already have name tags? I know a lot of my kindergarten teachers, especially the first few weeks of school or even first few days, that you know, they would have name tags that they already had made. That they could just wear to my class. Um, and, you know, I'm not saying make them ha create all of their, their, um, their name tags for everyone, but if they already have'em, don't reinvent the wheel. Um, and really it could be as simple as creating, um, a, a, a thing and like printing them out on labels so that you could just very quickly go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, um, and really simplify it. But again, giving you that visual clue. So here's your actionable tip. Decide on what name tags you're gonna use, um, and have some materials ready. So if you need to find some labels, if you need to find some pretty, if you wanna go crazy and make some really pretty ones, whatever, whatever you wanna do, do it. Make a plan, make it happen so that you can have some name tags at the beginning of the year. Obviously name games are great. Um, I use a lot of name games at the beginning of the year. Um, one because they tend to be kind of. Fun and also a great way for me to get to know them, them to get to know the other people in their class and kind of remind us who we are. Um, so one that I use a lot is jump in, jump out, turn yourself about, jump in, jump out. Introduce yourself. My name's Mr. Tart. And they say, yeah, and I like music. Yeah. And we are gonna learn and I'm gonna like it. Yeah, for the rest of my life. And they say for the rest of his life. Um, boom, that's it. That's the whole thing. It just kind of goes around the circle. Um, you need a little bit of setup on that one, but I've used that one third through sixth grade. Honestly, sixth grade it gets a little bit weird. Um, but honestly at that point they're basically fifth graders anyway. Um, so that's a great one. Another one is Kitty Pickety Bumblebee. Won't you say your name for me? My name is Mr. Tart. His name is Mr. Tart. What's cool about that one is you can change it. Pickety Pickety, bumblebee. Won't you sing your name for me? My name is Mr. Tart. His name is Mr. Tart or Whisper. His name is Whisper. His name. What is my name? His name is Whisper Tart, whatever. Right. So you can kind of throw in some of those four voices. Review if you need to. Uh, and then another one. That's great and that's a lot of fun to get them up moving is. Bounce high, bounce slow, bounce the ball to shy low, bounce high, bounce slow, bounce the ball to Jackson, right? You're kind of bouncing the ball. It's a steady beat. And then when you say the name, they sing the name of the person in the circle and they get to know their name. That's great. So name names are great because they're low pressure, they can keep the fun. Um. And they're just kind of great way, great ways to get started for the year. So here's your action item. Choose one to two simple name games to incorporate into your first few music classes. Honestly, if you just Google fifth grade name, fifth grade, music class, name games, third grade music class, name games, whatever, you're gonna find a bunch of blog posts, all different kinds of things. Um. To kind of supplement the ones that I've shared. Strategy four is very simple, and that is a direct introduction activity. Um, so that could be as simple as we, you know, we just did a game or something and we're kind of, the energy's really high. We need to break it down. So we sit down in the circle and we say, all right, I want you to remind me of your name or tell me if me name, if you don't write it. Um, and then tell us something, you know, your favorite musical instrument or whatever. You go around the circle. My name is Johnny. I like the tuba or whatever. Um, what I will say, be careful about this. Um, it's very easy to get into, tell me your name and what's the favorite part of your summer. Um, and just kind of be aware of the student population that you see. Because sometimes, especially if you're in a population that's experienced a lot of trauma, um, they didn't really have great summers or they didn't, you know, they didn't get to do a lot of the other big things that some of their classmates might have. So just be aware of that so that it's not a surprise. Um, and try to stick to questions that are a little bit more. Um, open for everyone that doesn't kind of create that us versus them slash othering. Mindset. So just be aware of that. So your action item is to plan a short introduction circle activity for your first few classes. Told you it wasn't gonna be super complicated. Strategy five is one that is not really one you plan to do. You just kind of do it. Um, and that's what I call the repeat and connect. So basically, instead of just saying, Hey, come on over here, you would say, Hey Johnny, come on over here. Basically just use their name whenever possible. Um, so if they ask you, um, Mr. Tarbey, can I go to the bathroom? Uh, sure. Susie, just make sure you wash your hands or whatever. Like you just, you give yourself those opportunities to use your, use their name whenever possible. This is great if you're using a strategy like name tags or a seating chart, um, to kind of help you learn them if you don't know them. And it's a really good way to reinforce them as a teacher. So here's your action item for that. I want you to make a conscious effort in the first few interactions, and honestly like most interactions throughout the entire year. Um, but really make sure you're using their names, repeating their names, giving them that, um, connection to who they're as a person, and then the name that they use. Alright, so I just went through those really quickly. So seating charts with pictures, using name tags, name games, direct introduction activities, and the repeat and connect method. So again, those are just five different strategies that you can use to learn student names because let's be honest, we have a lot. And a little bonus strategy is just if you don't know their name or if you make a mistake, own it. Just be like, Hey, I'm so sorry. I'm trying to learn so many, so many student names right now, and I'm getting them a little bit confused. Is it okay if you know, if I don't know your name, will you, will you help me? Like literally just level with them and most, like nine times outta 10, the kids are like, oh yeah, that, that is a lot of names. Let, let me help you. With that being said, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of That Music podcast. If you haven't left s Success, five Star Review on iTunes, Spotify, or a comment on YouTube, wherever you're listening, um, hey, subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. Um, it would mean the world to us, if you would, so that we can help grow the podcast, get in front of more music teachers just like you. Um, and as always, please feel free to reach out to. I love being able to connect with music teachers from all over the world in this little bubble of the internet that I inhabit. And I would love to connect on Instagram at that music teacher. Um, or you can send an email hello@thatmusicteacher.com. Uh, but with that being said, I'm getting a little long-winded. Um, and as always, thank you so, so much for making a difference in the lives of the students that you teach. I'll see you next week right here on that Easy podcast.