Play and sing a Valentine's song with your second graders. They'll follow along allow as you demonstrate how to sing and keep a steady beat on non-pitched percussive instruments. While the music instructional activity has a Valentine...

This outstanding lesson will encourage your students to combine their knowledge of rhythm, pitch, tone and color with their imaginations to create original compositions about animals. They create a music carnival to "Peter and the Wolf"...

Students observe the sounds of different brass instruments in order to understand how to create different pitches. In this musical instructional activity, students create a "brass" instrument from everyday household objects. The students...

Once the class learns about the hero's journey, they'll find it in every story and movie they see! Take characters from their humble beginnings to their atonement and apotheosis with a set of lessons about the hero's journey...

After a teacher-led demonstration on the lives and music of Aaron Copland and Duke Ellington, learners write a letter to them which shows their understanding of how a person's life experiences can be reflected in a composer's music. They...

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...

The school band or orchestra analyzes their own performance after exploring musical terminology. They listen to a classical piece and describe it using only words. They look up musical terminology and then use those words to compare and...

Singing is a wonderful way to express an idea of any kind. This lesson is written expressly for use in directing a high school chorus. They work on using four-part harmony, expression, and melodic intervals while singing a Jewish folk...

Bring jazz music and the Harlem Renaissance to light with a lesson that challenges scholars to research and create. Pupils delve deep into information materials to identify jazz terminology, compare types of jazz and jazz musicians,...

Introduce your young learners to opera by dressing up as Mozart and recounting some of the fascinating details of his life and music. After exploring the Metropolitan Opera's site for kids, the class listens to a reading of Kyra...

Considered an American art form, rap has its roots in places from Jamaica to the Bronx. Using a series of readings, comprehension questions, and videos, scholars explore the history of rap and its connections to the African diaspora....

Students explore the influence of the landscape of Ireland on shaping the poetry of William Butler Yeats. They work in groups researching the growth of the Irish Nationalist Movement, Celtic origins, invasions, and the impact on the...

A reading of Walter Dean Myers' "Harlem" sets the stage for studying the literature, art, and music of the Harlem Renaissance. The lesson begins with a review of the social, political, and economic conditions of the 1920s and 1930s that...

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's swing rendition of Robert and Richard Sherman's "I Wanna Be Like You" offers young grammarians an opportunity to examine verb tenses, noun clauses, gerunds, and prepositions.

Middle schoolers practice evaluating art by creating a research project and presentation. They use the Internet and library to discover a piece of art or artist whom they feel has an impact on the world of art. Next, they create a...

Students create abstract art using acrylic paints and canvas in this lesson provided by Oregon Public Broadcasting. The lesson includes information on abstract art and video links.

This lesson is intended for a music class but would be a great way to teach compare and contrast to any class. Kindergarteners dance the Hokey Pokey to four different styles of music and examine two paintings of Humpty Dumpty, then...

Upper graders having skills in music performance will extend their abilities through creative musical composition. They'll use Finale 2000 to explore facets of music composition, they'll then compose a piece for their instrument in C, F,...

Students identify ways in which the principles and subject matter of other disciplines taught in school, specifically math, are interrelated with those of music.

Notes of pride and persecution, exclusion and isolation resonate in flamenco. Introduce this musical art form to your social studies or Spanish language classes with a resource that follows a young flamenco guitarist as he...

Get out those bells, sand blocks, and sticks! Your kindergarteners use their singing voices to ask and answer friendly questions while keeping rhythm. They take turns in a group and in pairs singing questions and answers while keeping...

Youngsters listen to poetry and music to understand that words are made of sounds.  In this rhythm and rhyme lesson, students create songbooks of healthy eating songs. They will also act out pantomimes and dance to the music....

What is real or imagined? The lines of beauty reality, and imagination are blurred in Elizabeth Peyton's portraits of her community. Learners analyze her use of artistic technique in conveying real and imagined communities. They then use...

Elizabeth Peyton is an artist who creates images of people (often famous) that she doesn't personally know. These images become part of her imagined community. Learners analyze her work, her community of imagined friends, and then create...