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...

Middle schoolers learn about the artist Canaletto, play a vocabulary game, and create a landscape using collage technique. Background information on the artist is provided along with instructions for the game and vocabulary words to...

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...

Whether new to the Kodály Method of music instruction or an experienced veteran, you'll find much to make your heart sing in a teacher guide that was designed for a music appreciation project. 

The 41 slides in a professional development seminar model how to use close reading techniques to examine the many layers of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In addition to passages from the novel, slides provide biographical...

Help young musicians stay on beat with this series of classroom displays. Showing the name and symbol for different musical notes, these tools are a handy resource for any elementary or middle school music teacher.

Singing is a great way to build memory, music, and verbal communication skills. Little ones sing the song, "Old Mac Donald had a Farm." They make the sounds of each animal on the farm paying attention to signaling cues, singing high, and...

If you are teaching music and need a resource to demonstrate melodic and harmonic intervals, you're in luck. This hand out describes and shows what melodic and harmonic intervals look like on a staff. 

Young scholars explore poetry through jazz, rap, and hip hop music. They discover the common threads that run through the poetry and music. Students design their own lyrics to a jazz, rap, or hip hop selection and share their songs...

Kids compare and contrast music from the past to the present. They listen to and review the characteristics of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Pop music. Then, they discuss the differences in each and how musical icons from the past...

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,...

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...

Quiz your class on the wonders of African music. There are approximately 25 questions broken into five sections, each section focuses on a different aspect of music applied to African music elements. Quiz topics include African music,...

Kids explore Gullah music from Africa and then create original compositions based on what they've learned. They practice traditional melodies and rhythms then make some of their own, which they then perform for the class. 

Classical period music is defined by its characteristics and distinctive sound. A set of notes assists upper graders in recalling and analyzing music from the classical period based on musical terminology. An example analysis of Eine...

Here is a complex lesson plan that interweaves the history of the Jim Crow South and the Great Migration with the study of poetry, art, and blues music from the Harlem Renaissance. The plan helps young historians develop a deep...

Are you starting a recorder lesson with your elementary students? Use this helpful slide-show, perfect for introducing basic music terms such as tempo, dynamics, pitch, and duration. Each slide provides a definition and example of the...

Fourth graders explore ballet. In this dance and music humanities lesson, 4th graders practice ballet positions and play a card game using French ballet vocabulary. Students count beats in rhythm patterns and listen to classical music...

A New York Time article on a major music and arts event can be a good way to get kids interested in the daily news. They read an article about Coachella, and then answer eight comprehension questions, in either blog or print form. Note:...

What do Johann Sebastian Bach and Miles Davis have in common? Much more than class members might imagine. The comparison of these two famous composers is just one lesson in a unit that investigates many facets of the music industry...

How many of the world's greatest composers were born in Austria? Or Germany? Or the United States? An interactive map provides young musicians with information about prominent composers in the last few centuries, as well as the periods...

In a time of fake news, media manipulation, and Internet trolls, a resource equips learners with the tools they need to recognize and combat resources that are designed to appeal to our cognitive biases. Introduce learners to five...

Accompany the African folktale, Anansi the Spider, with a collection of five lessons, each equipped with supplemental activities. Lessons offer multidisciplinary reinforcement in English language arts, social studies, science,...

While this resource was originally made to be used in conjunction with John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, it could be used for any literary text. A reference sheet for readers, the resource includes terminology related to figurative...