California Department of Education
Instruments of Change: Making a Simple Stringed Instrument (CTE)
What materials and skills does a person need to build a simple working instrument? With the first of four lessons from the Changing One's Tune: A Music Therapy STEM Integrated Project series, scholars learn about the basic structure of...
Curated OER
Musical Instrument Families
Using graphics, and an easy-to-understand format, this resource outlines the different kinds of instruments and their characteristics. This presentation could be used as an introduction to instruments for students getting ready to...
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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...
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Instrument Families
From the clarinet to maracas, this PowerPoint covers various instruments in the 4 instrument families: woodwinds, brass, strings, percussion. Descriptions and pictures of instruments in the four families are provided. Slides 19-22...
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Rubber Band Banza
Third graders review ideas about sound and vibration to make their own stringed instrument. They review what a pictograph and bar graph are. Pupils conduct a survey within the classroom to choose the four favorite string instruments and...
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Acoustical Science
Students explore musical instruments and the pitches and tones they make. For this acoustical science lesson, students create their own string instruments and explore how pitch is altered.
Captain Planet Foundation
Predicting Whether the Weather is Good for the Garden
Can your class predict the weather? Show them how they can come close with a lesson about creating weather instruments, including weather vanes, barometers, wind socks, anemometers, and thermometers. Kids research weather patterns and...
Curated OER
Design an Instrument
Students design an instrument. For this sound, vibration and pitch lesson, students learn about the characteristics of sound, vibration and pitch. Students design a guitar using the assembled craft materials and demonstrate how they...
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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.
Acoustical Society of America
Musical Instruments
Mix it up and engage learners in a lesson on music and physical science. Using cups, strings, guitars, and voice, the class will experiment with sound vibration and frequency. They'll use each instrument and fill out a worksheet that...
Acoustical Society of America
Musical Instruments Part I - Woodwinds
What is the connection between sound and vibration? Learners find out as they conduct a series of experiments with instruments they create. The experiment is well explained, includes modifications for visuall and hearing impaired...
Curated OER
Reviewing Good Playing Habits
The string section of your school orchestra can get a proper form make-over by incorporating this lesson. They reestablish proper playing form, posture, and sound as they compose an essay on how to maintain good playing habits during...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Instruments from Various Cultures
After a review of orchestral instruments and instrument families, learners make their own. They listen to the song "Simple Gifts" and identify the instruments heard in the piece. Then they draw an instrument of their own invention,...
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Chinese Instruments
Students explore Chinese instruments. For this Chinese instrument music lesson, students listen to a performance by Liu Fang and describe the sounds they hear. Students classify western and Chinese instruments according to their...
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Woodwind Instruments and Pitch
Students explore musical pitch. In this cross curriculum musical instruments and "sound" physics instructional activity, students identify and describe common traits of woodwind instruments. Students research "pitch" and what causes...
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Teaching Musical Instruments in Kindergarten
Pupils explore the sounds of different instruments through the nne lessons of this unit. Instruments representing the elements of percussion, string, and wind are utilized in this unit.
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Strum Along
Students engage in a lesson which takes something constructed by the class, that would be normally classified as just sound, then work together to make what can be perceived to be music. Students construct a basic stringed instrument...
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Percussion Instruments and Pitch
Young scholars play string instruments to discover how the pitch changes on various string instruments. In this pitch lesson, students listen to video clips and play an online music game. Young scholars become familiar with music...
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Just Stringing Along
Learners learn the string instruments of the symphony orchestra and recognize their "relatives."
Curated OER
Sounds Like Science- Jamboree
Students explore sound, pitch, volume, frequency, and musical notes. In this homemade instrument lesson, students use materials such as jars, buckets, strings, rackets, rubber bands, and bottles to create their own unique instrument....
Little Kids Rock
The Latin Rhythms of “Despacito”
When you hear the first few beats of "Despacito," the unrivaled Latin pop hit of 2017, you can't keep your feet from moving! A music analysis lesson plan examines the intoxicating hit by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee and introduces the...
Curated OER
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
Making a Musical Instrument
Young scholars determine how music is produced through sound waves and how instruments produce music differently than others. They construct flutes out of straws and explore how to adjust the sound.
Curated OER
Sound/Pitch
Students explore how pitch changes when using instruments that are plucked, blown, and hit. In this sound and pitch instructional activity, students blow across the top of bottles that are filled with water to create sound. Students use...