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Music Fun
Instruments to Trace Color and Label
Handbells and castanets. Triangles and timpani. Trumpets and trombones. As part of their study of instruments, young musicians label, trace and color the parts of seven instruments. Also included in the resource packet are tracing...
Amani Project
Make an Instrument
Create a little harmony with Amani Project! Young musicians create their instruments using found or recycled objects. As an introduction, class members first experiment with sounds they can make with their bodies (clapping, stomping...
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...
American Museum of Natural History
Sounds of the Silk Road
Young explorers may not be able to travel the Silk Road but they can listen to music that was played on instruments of the time and create their own songs with the help of an interesting interactive resource.
Leading Learner
Using Music to Tell a Story or Describe a Scene
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...
Physics Classroom
Name That Harmonic: Strings
Don't string your class along! Physics scholars discover the fascinating forces behind the music of stringed instruments using an interactive. From a series covering sounds and waves, the interactive asks users to identify nodes and...
Smithsonian Institution
African American Music: Let’s Sing and Play Clapping Games
Two lessons focus on making a beat. Using popular African American music of its time, scholars listen and analyze the rhythm then recreate it with hands drums, and cups.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Nature Walk: English Language Development Lessons (Theme 2)
Walking in nature is the theme of a unit designed to support English language development lessons. Scholars look, write, speak, and move to explore topics such as camping, woodland animals, instruments,...
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Music
Music is the focus of the reading adventure pack. After reading, pupils complete hands-on activities. Scholars use household items to make shakers and cymbals. They listen to eclectic music by turning on the radio, borrowing music from...
Amani Project
Harmony Break! Finding Emotions With Music
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...
Concordia College Archives
History and Musical Aesthetics
What are the musical elements that characterize a school's fight song or its alma mater? Class members listen to examples of fight songs and alma maters from various schools, play a listening game, and then create a list of the...
Stanford University
Lesson Plan: The Children's Crusade and the Role of Youth in the African American Freedom Struggle
Young people played significant roles in the Civil Rights movement. Class members examine the contributions of Barbara Johns, Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith, and the children of Birmingham,...
John F. Kennedy Center
Harriet Tubman: Retelling History Through Dance and Drama
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...
Fun Music Company
Substitute Lesson Ideas For The Music Teacher
Have to sub for a music class on short notice? Or have some extra time to play with? Never fear! Help is here in the form of 20 sure-fire music activities and worksheets tested and submitted by music teachers. A great resource to add to...
Curated OER
Thrilling Information: Music and Reading
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,...
K12 Reader
Punctuation Theater
Break out the slide whistles, triangles, and tambourines. It's time for a punctuation lesson. This richly detailed plan is loaded with ideas and activities for using rhythm instruments to accent the punctuation in folk tales. A...
Curated OER
Introduction to Ludwig van Beethoven
"Ode to la Tortilla" and "Ode to Joy"? Sure! Use Gary Soto's poem to introduce learners to the ode format. After examining the descriptive words Soto uses, class members study a poster of Ludwig van Beethoven, suggest words that describe...
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: "Violin" by Nikki Wallschlaeger
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...
Scholastic
Study Jams! Invertebrates
Stringed instruments play as viewers explore ocean invertebrates through nine nicely flowing slides. The captions describe the eight phyla: cnidaria, flatworms, roundworms, segmented worms, mollusks, arthropods,and enchinoderms. During...
Curated OER
Musical Activities for Early Childhood Inclusion
Get your movers and shakers grooving to the beat with this series of musical activities designed to meet everyone's needs! Ten games, using an assortment of instruments, bring awareness to one's body, brain, and social interactions in a...
Concordia College Archives
Our School Song
Show your school spirit! Class members use instruments or sing along and employ what they have learned in the two previous lessons to perform their school's songs.
Smithsonian Institution
The Sounds of an Island: Jamaican Music for the Classroom
Introduce young explorers to the music and history of Jamaican culture through game songs and dances. As a bonus, class members get to play simple songs transcribed for the recorder.
Concordia College Archives
Introduction and Student Inquiry
Introduce young musicians to the history of and different styles of music with an inquiry-based learning activity that asks them to play detectives to determine the similarities and differences among the sheet music found at a series of...
California Department of Education
Consonance and Dissonance: Creating Intervals for Emotions (CTE)
How are music and emotion related? Using lesson plan two of four from the Changing One's Tune: A Music Therapy STEM Integrated Project Series, scholars explore the connection between the two topics. They learn to recognize different...