Curated OER
Island Maracas
Students listen to Caribbean folk music and discuss maracas and their role in music. They construct and design pairs of maracas using paper mache, then perform a Puerto Rican folk song using their maracas.
Curated OER
Storytellers: Dave Matthews Band
Students decide what the term "art" means to them. They identify artistic elements displayed by the Dave Matthews Band. They understand the relationship between music and other means of artistic expression.
Curated OER
Feminism Does Not Have to be an F-Word
Students analyze social activism messages in music. In this feminism lesson, students explore selected music that expresses sentiments voiced in the women liberation movement in the United States. Students compare the lyrics of the songs...
Curated OER
Dancin' to the Times
Fifth graders work in groups in order to research a specific music era or dance style to share with the class. They have studied different music styles that are included in the lesson and now they have the choice to research one. There...
Curated OER
Creating Characters: Movement
Students compare two characters and role-play how they would perform various actions. They view and discuss a video, list opposite descriptions for the two girls in the video, and role-play the opposites.
Curated OER
Dancing Fast, Medium and Slow
Second graders practice dance using different speeds of music and types of movement. For this dance lesson, 2nd graders view a clip of tap dancing and analyze the speed of music in coordinating with the speed of dance movements. Students...
Curated OER
Lines of Symmetry
Students practice dance to divide the space or body shape into equal sections to create symmetry in dance. In this symmetry lesson, students practice symmetrical and asymmetrical movements in dance. Students participate in move and...
Curated OER
Patterns in Dance and Math
Learners analyze how repeated body movements and shapes can represent and extend patterns. In this pattern analysis lesson, students discuss patterns in dance, math, and everyday living. Learners demonstrate a dance using a sequence of...
San Francisco Symphony
Beethoven's Sixth Symphony and the Expression of Feeling through the Arts
Here is an activity used originally to finish off a unit on country life and nature. It requires learners to have a basic understanding of harvest, rural life, and autumn. They'll use what they know to construct dance movements showing...
Curated OER
Musical Rhythm Instruments
Young scholars develop a better understanding of rhythm instruments and their relationship to music. It also provides an understanding of the importance of color and shape in creative expression.
Curated OER
Elements of Music
Students identify three of the essential elements of music: rhythm, melody and harmony. They discover a simple song which will illustrate these three elements separately and bring them together in a final form. They analyze and critique...
Mississippi Whole School Initiative
Dream Big...With Your Eyes Wide Open
For many people, Barack Obama's presidency was the next step in Martin Luther King, Jr's dream of America's future. Explore the dreams of Americans past and present, as well as the young Americans in your class, with a set of activities...
Curated OER
Rhythm and Rhyme
Students compare the given rhyme to another rhyme that they already know (I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly). Students listen and identify the similar rhyme pattern of the two rhymes and apply those concepts to a group creation of...
Curated OER
Rhythm and Rhyme
Learners listen to and identify the similar rhyme pattern of two rhymes and apply those concepts to a group creation of a new rhyme. They discover that the given rhyme comes from India by learning a little background information on India.
Curated OER
What Really Happened?
Sixth graders recreate scenes from the theories about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. In this history and theatre lesson, 6th graders review the story of Earhart using a flip chart. Students work on one act plays to depict one of...
Curated OER
Native American Friendship Dance
Young scholars demonstrate the proper steps in sequence to the Native American Friendship Dance.
Curated OER
The Heart of Human Experience: Cultura Azteca
First graders explore Aztec culture to gain understanding of relationship between music, recreation, and culture. Seven lessons on one page.
Curated OER
Singing in the Round
Third graders experience different songs that are themed to match the seasons of the year. Each season will have a different song for the students to play non-pitched instruments, moving in rhythm and learning the pattern of a round.
Curated OER
Singing In Canon
Third graders analyze and discuss the four seasons and how each can be represented in song form. This lesson is intended for the third grade Music classroom but could be adapted for any elementary grade. State and National Standards...
Curated OER
Telling Stories Through Creative Drama
Students examine fairy tales. As an introductory activity, students play the statue game. In groups, they write statements that tell the plot of the story. Using props, and without voices, students retell the story by creating...
Curated OER
Recipe Dance/Making Duets
Students create and memorize movement phrases within a specified structure and develop duets from the solo phrases.
Curated OER
Clothes on the Line
Students creatively move using a variety of non-locomotor and locomotor movements.
Curated OER
Choreography Project
Students produce a short choreography composition. Specific guidelines and choice of music are provided. The grade/evaluation takes place in the form of video documentation and a teacher-created rubric.