Mood and Idea in Music Teacher Resources

Grouchy? Sad? Here's a great resource that shows kids how music can be used to lift their spirits. Kids collect and chart data on the effects of music on emotions. After analyzing the results of their experiment, they develop...

Here’s a cross-curricular program music activity that uses Peer Gynt to engage class members. Groups take one section of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” choreograph their section of the tune to represent the story as they imagine it,...

Hey Macarena! Third graders keep time while they sing a Latin Folk Song. To practice keeping a steady rhythm and singing in pitch, the class sings the Folk Song together and in a round while keeping a beat. They then learn to do the...

The fifth activity in the Amani Project series, another Harmony Break, has participants demonstrate a mood shift. They begin by drumming in a way that indicates their current feelings. They then model a change in mood by transitioning...

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...

The third activity from the Amani Project has youths create a Mood Meter. The colorful meter, divided into red, yellow, blue, and green squares, lets participants indicate not only how they are feeling but also permits them to indicate...

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...

Young composers demonstrate their understanding of the stylistic features of descriptive music, including pitch, tempo, dynamics, rhythm, and timbre, by developing a melody and countermelody for a main character in a story. As part of...

Scholars listen to several pieces of music in preparation for a discussion about how instruments and lyrics convey emotions. With Harriet Tubman as the focus, small groups create an original song or dance. A reflection piece concludes...

Can art be a mode of communication? You bet it can! Learners explore how colors are used to convey mood in art. First, the class listens to three very unique musical selections that convey three different moods. Then, they compare...

In this mood worksheet, students read a passage and define the theme, mood, and purpose of what they read. Students complete 3 questions.

Each of the three dance lessons included here will get your class moving. The first lesson allows learners to explore how music and movement differ in meaning depending on cultural context. Lesson two gives them an opportunity to create...

Language learners get into the swing of things with a jazzy lesson about similes. They read an article about Duke Ellington, listen to samples of his music, and then try their hand at crafting similes to describe his improvisational and...

Song lyrics, like poems, are meant to be heard. After examining the literary devices in several poems, scholars examine the lyrics of popular songs and identify the sound devices and the figurative language writers use to create the...

Gather the entire family (or class members) for a fun Harmony Break! A volunteer thinks of a color from their Mood Meter that they will express by singing, playing an instrument, or performing a dance. After the performance, the audience...

The big idea in the fourth lesson from the Amani Project is that people can experience different emotions in precisely the same event. One participant uses their body to express an emotion. Then other participants move to the area of the...

English-speaking viewers don't need to read the subtitles to understand Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood For Love. The colors, the music, and the framing of the shots so beautifully express the emotions of the characters that dialogue, in any...

Rudyard Kipling's "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and a song from the musical "Hamilton" allow middle schoolers to practice using punctuation to indicate whether sentences are indicative, imperative, or interrogative. 

Students analyze their feelings after reading or listening to music. In this moods lesson, students react to the feelings generated by the story or music they heard. Students pair edit their stories.

Students compose music using Islamic patterns. In this cultural arts lesson, students examine Islamic art and analyze the patterns. Students incorporate various Islamic patterns into a musical composition.

Eleventh graders examine political, cultural, and social movements through music. In this 1960s American history lesson, 11th graders explore the music of the decade in order to better understand the complexity of the time period....

Upper graders respond to a series of opinions posted about the music played at last year's Fashion Week in New York City. They describe the music on their personal playlists, why they like it, and what moods they try to evoke through...

Nikki Wallschlaeger's Violin is the featured poem in a lesson that uses music and multiple readings to delve deep into its analysis. After a writing warm-up, learners watch and listen to a video that showcases Regina Carter...

To celebrate diversity and the purpose of Harmony Day, the class examines culturally diverse music and expression through line drawing. They discuss that all cultures produce music and that music can convey mood just like art can. As the...