Musical theater is a trifecta, requiring cast members to be actors, singers, and dancers. Help theater arts students develop these skills with a unit designed to prepare them for a staging of a musical.

That old fashioned rock and roll comes alive as theatre arts students prepare to attend a live performance of the musical School of Rock. Packed with both pre- and post-production materials, the guide has it all. Rock on!

Aladdin, Disney's Broadway musical comedy, is a magic carpet ride. Prepare your class for a field trip to the show with a study guide that is a treasure trove of activities, cultural connections, and background information.

Musicals have been adapted from stage plays, novels, and movies. With The Lion King, Disney transforms its animated film into show-stopping, live-action musical theatre. The guide Disney provides to accompany a study...

Celebrate sean-nós, céilí, and the lilting music of the Emerald Isle with a set of language arts activities! Learners complete word puzzles, vocabulary exercises, and comprehension questions about traditional Irish music.

Take note. Soul music. Gospel music. Country music. Summer comes alive with the sounds of music as program participants learn about various genres of music, create instruments, and write and perform songs about the facts and traditions...

The 16 lessons in Teaching Musical Theatre: The Essential Handbook are designed to help actors enrolled in a theatre arts class develop the skills they need to be successful in musical theatre. Check out this sample lesson to see if you...

Here's a collection of unit plans for middle school musicians. Topics include the mbira, opera, rhythm and culture, music in Africa, music in the movies, music theory and notation, blues and jazz, and the ocarina. Definitely worth a look.

Drag queens in thigh-high shiny red leather boots! Welcome to Kinky Boots, the Tony Award-winning musical about a young man trying to save his family-owned shoe-making business. With an engaging story line and songs by Cyndi Lauper, the...

General music students learn about the history of popular American music by creating and performing a one-act musical. After researching and creating an American Musical timeline, class members write a song with lyrics using Jam Studio,...

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.

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. 

Over the course of six lessons, scholars try their hand at composing and dancing after a thorough examination of the famous ballet, The Nutcracker, by Tchaikovsky. Participants watch and discuss the performance of two dances, create...

How did jazz influence Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man? Class members read some of Ellison's non-fiction writings about blues and jazz, listen to records, watch videos, and engage in student-centered discussions. They then produce podcasts...

What was music like during the Stone Age? Learners listen to a CD entitled, Art of Primitive Sound as they consider the culture of people in the Stone Age. They use objects found in nature to create instruments, and then...

The traditions, costumes, and the music of the Mardi Gras Indians, African-Americans and those with African American or Native American Heritage are the focus of a unit that introduces class members to a little-known group that...

Introduce young thespians to all aspects of the theater. A syllabus for a one-semester drama course provides lessons that take learners from the history of drama to the many facets of play production.

Jazz and the City, Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement, Jazz and Gender, Jazz and Literature, Jazz and the Arts, Jazz and Film. Here's a packet of unit plans organized around themes that reflect American culture. Each unit examines how...

Students use rhymes, songs and games to help them study music. They discover how music can be used with movement, speech and singing.

There are a lot of great ideas to be found here. To better understand the connection between art and history, learners research several music and art pieces, then relate them to major social events. They study the lives and works...

The second and third movements of the Eroica, Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, provides listeners with an opportunity to connect to French Revolution and to Napoleon Bonaparte. As they listen to the music, individuals draw what their ears...

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...

Students are introduced to several forms of indigenous European music. Students become familiar with instruments, musical and forms and styles from Spain, Sardinia, Austria and Switzerland. Students recreate selected rhythms and styles.

Students complete a unit of 9 lessons to learn about realism in music during the time of the Underground Railroad. In this music realism lesson, students learn about coded lyrics in the slave songs. Students complete 9 lessons using...