Africans transported to the Caribbean as part of the transatlantic slave trade brought with them a rich tradition of music and dance. Four lessons teach young musicians the rumba clave rhythm, cascara rhythm, and the 6/8 bell patterns...

Turn your classroom into a music studio as groups work together to determine why music sounds different when performed live versus a recording. After listening to some different music, each group picks a poem, creates a recording, and...

Here’s a cross-curricular program music activity that uses Peer Gynt to engage class members. Groups take one section of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” choreograph their section of the tune to represent the story as they imagine it,...

Two lessons focus on making a beat. Using popular African American music of its time, scholars listen and analyze the rhythm then recreate it with hands drums, and cups. 

Music is the focus of the reading adventure pack. After reading, pupils complete hands-on activities. Scholars use household items to make shakers and cymbals. They listen to eclectic music by turning on the radio, borrowing music from...

Young musicians experience song, dance, and play of the Jamaican culture. Scholars listen for and recreate beats, they play tunes, make up original dances, and play a game that challenges pupils to pass stones to a specific beat.

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.

Young historians channel the very medium used to convey news during World War I. They create and present a five-minute radio broadcast on a particular topic from the war, such as the roles of African Americans and women, war bonds,...

Young explorers may not be able to travel the Silk Road but they can listen to music that was played on instruments of the time and create their own songs with the help of an interesting interactive resource. 

The backbone of Latin American music is the beat! Young musicians work on blending Afro-Latin rhythms and beat patterns before incorporating the major pentatonic, minor pentatonic, and blues scales in their own compositions.

Music, writing, and activism all tell the story of history! The resource uses these elements and more in a presentation to discuss the Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance. Your class views biographies, discusses important events, and...

Much of Latin American music owes its origins to the slave trade. Peoples from the Yoruban and Dahomean cultures brought with them the distinctive rhythms, time signatures, and eighth note patterns that now characterize Caribbean music....

No study of World War II would be complete without an in-depth examination of the events of June 6, 1944. Pascal Vuong's D-Day Normandy:1944, is the perfect vehicle to convey the sheer magnitude of the events that have been called...

A 67-page packet provides instructors with a complete course in the history of Jazz. Lessons look at the roots of jazz in early 20th century African American communities in the southern United States and continues to the New Orleans...

Investigate sound waves with acoustic mirrors. Using audio software, groups make recordings of musical instruments, both with and without acoustic mirrors. They compare the recordings to see the effect of acoustic mirrors on sound...

The house lights dim, the curtain parts, lights slowly come up, revealing the stage. Before the actors appear, before a word is spoken, the audience is drawn in by the lighting, by the colors, by lines of the set, by the props, and...

Project-based learning in a music theory class? Take note. Young songwriters compose, record, copyright, and promote their original songs. They even design their own CD cover.

Here's a word scramble activity that asks kids to identify a series of instruments and then transpose the circled letters to reveal the name of the world's oldest playable musical instrument.

Friends arrive at the farm and aspiring agronomists help the farmer to grow what the friends want. With adorable animation and charming background music, little ones practice virtual gardening and farming while developing cognitive...

Combine the study of art, music, and history with an activity that asks kids to craft rattles out of slabs of clay.

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...

Explore the world of copyright law with a variety of activities to instill the importance of respecting creative property. Scholars watch an animated tale then take part in a grand conversation detailing the video's main idea, details,...

How much does the environment affect how and what man creates? Children explore the effect of the environment on primitive man as they research raw materials from a specific location. They use their findings to write a short essay about...

What do you call a fungus that writes music? A decomposer! Here, young biologists explore fungus by tasting fungus (blue cheese) to creating art with fungus to playing a board game centered around, you got it, fungus. Surprise...