Bass drum, snare drum, tom-toms, cymbals. Perched behind their drum sets, wielding their drum sticks and wire brushes, drummers lay the grove and are the heartbeat of a band's performance. A dynamic lesson introduces young musicians to...

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. 

Engage young mathematicians in learning about fractions with this cross-curricular math and music lesson. After listening to and repeating different beat patterns, children realize that musical notes are just another way of representing...

When you hear the first few beats of "Despacito," the unrivaled Latin pop hit of 2017, you can't keep your feet from moving! A music analysis lesson plan examines the intoxicating hit by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee and introduces the...

Africans transported to the Caribbean as part of the transatlantic slave trade brought with them a rich tradition of music and dance. Four lessons teach young musicians the rumba clave rhythm, cascara rhythm, and the 6/8 bell patterns...

Much of Latin American music owes its origins to the slave trade. Peoples from the Yoruban and Dahomean cultures brought with them the distinctive rhythms, time signatures, and eighth note patterns that now characterize Caribbean music....

Budding instrumentalists take on the task of reading accent marks and playing them correctly. They practice playing the provided rhythm or beat, focusing on emphasizing notes that have accents over them. The handout included provides...

Here's a packet of music activities designed specifically for children with autism. Kids learn greeting, echo, and repertory songs, as well as rhythmic patterns to play rhythm instruments.

Young musicians experience song, dance, and play of the Jamaican culture. Scholars listen for and recreate beats, they play tunes, make up original dances, and play a game that challenges pupils to pass stones to a specific beat.

Students discover the relationship between musical rhythms and fractions. They add musical notes together to produce fractions and create addition and subtraction problems with musical notes. Students complete worksheets and create their...

Little ones are led through a series of rhythmic songs and chants while they march, clap, and use their tummies as percussive instruments. They work on singing in pitch, chunking, and keeping a steady beat. 

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...

Music has often been called the international language that transcends cultures and regions. Scholars analyze the impact of Latin American music on New York City culture in the years following World War II. They research music, video,...

The backbone of Latin American music is the beat! Young musicians work on blending Afro-Latin rhythms and beat patterns before incorporating the major pentatonic, minor pentatonic, and blues scales in their own compositions.

Fourth graders explore ballet. In this dance and music humanities activity, 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 perception of rhythms by reading and the ability to auditorily discriminate these rhythm patterns by listening to them performed by the teacher is practiced here. your students will work to create an eight-beat long rhythm pattern.

Learn this 32-count line dance. There are four eight-counts that repeat throughout the song. The steps include walking forward, walking backward, pivots, grapevine, and some jumps. All in all this is a simple and quick dance to learn....

Introduce rhythmic beat and melodic beat with a upbeat activity that asks young musicians to clap the beat to their favorite nursery rhyme. To introduce the rest beat, class members use small drums or other percussion instruments to play...

Play and sing a Valentine's song with your second graders. They'll follow along allow as you demonstrate how to sing and keep a steady beat on non-pitched percussive instruments. While the music instructional activity has a Valentine...

To better understand the cultural achievements of the Harlem Renaissance and become familiar with its major figures, class members examine a painting by Aaron Douglas and a poem by Langston Hughes and compare how the artists develop...

Get out those bells, sand blocks, and sticks! Your kindergarteners use their singing voices to ask and answer friendly questions while keeping rhythm. They take turns in a group and in pairs singing questions and answers while keeping...

Students identify and demonstrate movement elements in relation to musical notation. They clap to rhythms, beat on drums, match musical notes to speech patterns and use the rhythms of the their names to create a dance.

Your learners will dance in their seats as this talented drummer connects math to music in a short video clip. Clayton Cameron shows how math puts the "cool" in various genres of music, including jazz, hip-hop, pop,...

Fun awaits both you and your class as you embark on a musical activity. After discussing different rhythmic meters they choose a poem to set to music. The poem must rhyme and be set to a melody in the key of C Major. Because the activity...