Curated OER
Music Lesson Plan for Teaching Children with (Severe) Autism
Here's a packet of music activities designed specifically for children with autism. Kids learn greeting, echo, and repertory songs, as well as rhythmic patterns to play rhythm instruments.
Curated OER
Set a Poem to Music
Fun awaits both you and your class as you embark on a musical activity. After discussing different rhythmic meters they choose a poem to set to music. The poem must rhyme and be set to a melody in the key of C Major. Because the activity...
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Elements of Music—How do Composers Plan?
The introduction to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and the finale of his Symphony No. 4 provide young musicians with an opportunity to investigate the music elements composers employ to develop the themes they want to create. They compare the...
Curated OER
Musical Hoops
Pre-schoolers gain a better understanding of personal space by playing this modified version of musical chairs. Played like musical chairs, students circle around a ring of hula hoops as music plays. When the music stops everyone needs...
Smithsonian Institution
The Sounds of an Island: Jamaican Music for the Classroom
Introduce young explorers to the music and history of Jamaican culture through game songs and dances. As a bonus, class members get to play simple songs transcribed for the recorder.
Education Closet
Equal Rhythms
Engage young mathematicians in learning about fractions with this cross-curricular math and music instructional activity. After listening to and repeating different beat patterns, children realize that musical notes are just another way...
Curated OER
Composing Music
Students explore music appreciation by creating their own music pieces in class. For this music composition lesson, students collaborate in small groups with their instruments and compose a short song which they will play for class....
Curated OER
Physical Education and Music Program
Teach everyone how to work together in both physical education and music activities. Parents and their children are shown a presentation that highlights the philosophy of cooperation. They apply these concepts to their physical education...
Mary Pope Osborne, Classroom Adventures Program
Dinosaurs Before Dark
Young readers travel back to the time of the dinosaurs in this literature unit based on the story Dinosaurs Before Dark. Intended for use with upper-elementary special education students, this resource provides reading comprehension,...
Curated OER
Dr. Seuss Day
First graders celebrate Dr. Seuss's Birthday. Moving through six stations in small groups, first graders rotate on the teacher's signal through several engaging activities connected to Dr. Seuss's books and poetry.
PJ Library
Joseph Had a Little Overcoat
Teach children that just because something is old, doesn't mean you have to throw it away with a reading of Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback. Engaging children with an arts and crafts activity in which they patch the holes in...
Curated OER
Composing Music
Students explore music appreciation by reading sheet music. In this musical score analysis lesson, students utilize their individual instruments to play the song "Peter and the Wolf." Students listen to an online version of the song and...
Curated OER
Teaching About Tolerance Through Music
Explore the importance of tolerance with a music-themed lesson. Learners listen to the music of Peter, Paul, and Mary, and discern the underlying messages before discussing the painful effects of ridicule, disrespect, and bullying.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Engineered Music
Sound engineers investigate the structural design of a musical instrument, the recorder. They work in collaborative groups to choose an instrument to build out of everyday craft materials. It must be able to repeat a three-note sequence...
Curated OER
Grand Canyon Suite
Take a trip to the Grand Canyon! Lesson one explores how Ferde Grofe painted a musical landscape of America when he wrote the Grand Canyon Suite. Learners then examine art that shows the Grand Canyon in lesson two. Finally, lesson three...
Syracuse University
Harlem Renaissance
The music and literature of the Harlem Renaissance defined American culture, including its poetry. Using a poem from the period, individuals explore its musical qualities and how it is reflective of the period. Then, they use what they...
Curated OER
Musical Sounds
Students investigate music appreciation by completing worksheets. In this musical arts lesson, students complete worksheets in which they identify different musical instruments, the sounds they make and the family of instruments they...
Curated OER
Kodaly Beat Lesson
Introduce rhythmic beat and melodic beat with a upbeat activity that asks young musicians to clap the beat to their favorite nursery rhyme. To introduce the rest beat, class members use small drums or other percussion instruments to play...
Odyssey of the Mind
Odyssey of the Mind Curriculum Activity: Performing Arts
The classical arts have made a lasting impact on our society and your advanced learners get to find out why. The activity starts as the children create a list of the arts found in society, they discuss how these art forms impact their...
Curated OER
Melodies and Math: Creating Music with Non-Traditional Instruments
Review the 4/4 and 2/4 time signatures in music with a helpful music theory lesson plan. Young musicians experiment with electronic sounds and create their own musical performance using instruments made from materials found in the...
Curated OER
We Play Music
Do you like music? Have your youngsters read We Play Music, practicing select reading strategies, like using picture clues to determine new words. Then, after their first independent read, have them re-read the story to a partner,...
Curated OER
Applying Music to Literature
Kids explore music, history, culture, and literature in a multi-faceted lesson plan. They discuss how both historical and cultural contexts shape music, art, and literature, and then apply these concepts as they engage in a listening...
Curated OER
Poetry/Music: Let It Snow!
Students create poems and sound compositions using instruments, sounds, and pictograph notation. After listening Debussy's Children's corner suite, they brainstorm a list of snow vocabulary words. Students write poems and in groups...
Curated OER
Michael Jackson's “Beat It” Dance
Looking for a line dance? Look no further. This dance is performed to Michael Jackson's "Beat It". It is comprised of four eight-counts. The moves consist of walking forward, swinging the hips, doing the grapevine, walking backwards, and...