Curated OER
Energy Transfer in Musical Instruments
Students create unique sounds using different instruments. In this energy lesson, students read and define several vocabulary terms such as heat, energy transfer and thermal equilibrium. Students utilize several household objects to...
Curated OER
Exploring the Families of Instruments
Students investigate the families of instruments. In this instrument lesson, students discuss how each instrument family makes their sound. Students then make their own instruments. Students write a paragraph about their favorite musical...
Curated OER
Sounds Like Music
Students define and examine the connections between sound and music and how engineers design instruments. They listen to examples of musical instruments, view a demonstration of a tuning fork and bottles filled with varying amounts of...
Curated OER
String Instruments and Pitch
Students make predictions and explore how pitch is altered in string instruments. In this acoustic science lesson, students learn the types and parts of string instruments and create their own. They listen to classical music and identify...
Curated OER
Sounds Like Science - Drums
Students see that understanding how sound is produced makes it possible for us to manipulate it so we can decrease the number of unpleasant sounds we encounter. They make a drum to explore the concepts of force, pitch and volume.
Curated OER
Sounds Like Science: Drums
Students explore the science of sound. In this sound lesson, students craft drums from various materials and respond to questions regarding pitch, force, and volume.
Curated OER
Sound--Music or Noise?
Students are introduced to the concept of sound and how it is presented in the world around them. Using scientific terms, they describe the properties of sound and create their own definitions of sound, music, and noise. They demonstrate...
Curated OER
Sound and Hearing
Students discover how sound is produced by objects and picked up and heard by humans. Using musical instruments, they identify how the quality can affect the loudness, pitch and tone of the sound. They develop their own instrument or a...
Curated OER
An Introduction To The Instruments Of The Orchestra
Young scholars explore a variety of instruments to discover their sound. After watching an orchestra play, students discover the categories of instruments such as woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion. In teams, they listen to...
Curated OER
The Sounds of Rain
Students create rainsticks. In this rainstick lesson, students use rainsticks as instruments to create the soothing sounds of rain. This lesson contains the directions to creating large and small rainsticks.
Curated OER
Sounds Like Science-Guitars
Young scholars demonstrate the relationship between a sound and its frequency. In this sound and frequency lesson, students use an old tennis racket and nylon fishing line to create a guitar. Young scholars observe the pitch and frequency.
Curated OER
Water
Third graders study different bodies of water and how they fit into the water cycle. They explain that materials exist in different states (solid, liquid and gas) and change from one to another, that there are systems, order, and...
Curated OER
Producing Beats
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...
Curated OER
Your Song
Young scholars create instruments to demonstrate their understanding of how the science of vibrations is used to create sounds.
Curated OER
Musical Role Models
Students identify instruments and their sounds and use them to model their own orchestra. After choosing an instrument to investigate further, they research to become familiar with the sound of the instrument, how the sound is created,...
Curated OER
Sounds You See, Hear, and Feel
Middle schoolers explore and create sound wave vibrations using musical instruments and common objects. They compare/contrast and describe actions that cause sound wave vibrations that can be seen, heard, and felt.
Curated OER
Musical Instruments - Woodwinds
Young scholars assemble and examine typical European orchestral woodwind instruments, determine how the instruments change pitch, identify common orchestral woodwind instruments by sound, and research a non-Euro-centric woodwind...
Curated OER
9 Easy to Make Musical Instruments for Kids
Students create various musical instruments out of everyday and recycled items.
Curated OER
Making Waves, Making Music, Making Noise
Students construct "talking cans" and instruments to explain how vibration of objects produces various sounds.
Curated OER
Music- Found-Object Orchestra
Students construct simple musical instruments. In this music lesson, students read the text Max Found Two Sticks and construct their own instruments from classroom materials.
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Music from the Silk Roads
Students explore different types of musical instruments. In this musical instrument lesson, students create a replica of a sheng. Students utilize this instrument to understand different types of breathing used in different sounds....
Curated OER
Sounds Good To Me - Instrument Creation
Third graders differentiate between pitch and volume and explain how sound travels through different materials. They analyze sound waves for their basic characteristics. Students design an instrument based on the principles of sound...
PBS
The Sixties: Hitsville USA
James Jamerson. You probably heard him but may not have heard of him. But fans of Motown Records will certainly recognize his contributions to the sound that desegregated popular music during the 1960s. Challenge young history detectives...
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...