Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
Instruments from Various Cultures
After a review of orchestral instruments and instrument families, learners make their own. They listen to the song "Simple Gifts" and identify the instruments heard in the piece. Then they draw an instrument of their own invention,...
Curated OER
Yellow Bird and Me
Upper elementary artists create works which demonstrate an understanding of the many elements of theater and the visual arts. This four-day plan combines many wonderful aspects of visual, musical, and theatrical arts into one very...
Library of Congress
Understanding Immigration Through Popular Culture
Class members are introduced to a project-based learning unit on US immigration with an activity that asks them to analyze sheet music and other primary source materials to uncover issues raised by immigration.
Thalian Association Community Theatre
West Side Story: Teacher Resource Guide
West Side Story is widely known as a modern-day Romeo & Juliet. Learners read a list of characters from the play and list their counterparts from Romeo & Juliet before completing a vocabulary enrichment activity and word...
Hawaiʻi State Department of Education
The Golden Egg
Get ready for a musical story time! First your young musicians review musical dynamics as they listen to and discuss the pitch and sound of each instrument you play for them. Then they talk about special words (mostly verbs) in the book,...
Curated OER
Buffalo Hide Paintings
To the Native American people living on the plains, the buffalo represented culture, art, sustenance, and survival. Explore the history of the buffalo with a social studies lesson, in which learners create a buffalo hide painting in the...
Curated OER
The blues highway: An integration of music with geography
High schoolers analyze the movement of the blues from rural Mississippi to urban Chicago and how place and the environment affected the development of the blues. They define the blues, where it originated and how and why it moved to...
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...
Curated OER
Music Conducting: Classroom Activities
Turn the class into a percussive orchestra and let the kids take over as conductor. You'll explain a few ins and outs of what a conductor does. Then you hand over the baton and let your budding Beethovens conduct each other as they...
Curated OER
What's Outside the Window
What do your students see when they look outside the window? This project lets their imagination go wild, and lets you see what kind of daydreaming they do best. They each draw, paint, and color an image of what they imagine as they are...
Curated OER
CREATIVE PRINCIPLES
Jr. high learners review the basic principles of design (balance, unity, movement, rhythm, pattern, contrast and emphasis) by watching a video by Gerald Brommer. Then they provide "aerobic exercise" for the right side of their brains by...
Curated OER
Platinum Perspectives
High schoolers redesign a particular album cover of their choice in this excellent high school Art instructional activity. The instructional activity suggests using Adobe Photoshop and glossy inkjet paper for the final presentation of...
Curated OER
Music Terms
Students review and define music terms. In this musical vocabulary lesson, students are given a list of terms, asked to unscramble them, then write the meaning of each term.
Curated OER
Music: Identifying Notes
Fourth graders read the note names in the treble clef staff, including the use of ledger lines above and below the staff. Using Music Ace II, they discover the note names in the treble clef, view examples, and answer questions about...
Curated OER
Lesson Exchange: Musical Mathematics (other, Music)
Students explain note values and relationships, especially dotted rhythms and tied notes by giving them a visual, hands on representation
Curated OER
Music and Emotions
First graders examine how certain types of music can evoke emotions and mental images. They fold a piece of paper into four equal sections, and create a picture of what they are visualizing in each section while listening to four...
Curated OER
Keys and Scales are Sets
Music theory lessons can be very tricky for some people. Children with a basic understanding of musical concepts take on the task of transposing music and identifying scale sets. This would be a good topic to address prior to discussing...
Curated OER
A Pentatonic Scale Activity
The famous Japanese tune, "Cherry Blooms" was composed using a pentatonic scale. Budding musicians explore the nature and theory behind the pentatonic scale as well as the East Asian music it is commonly used in. Multiple extensions are...
Curated OER
Lesson: American Idyll
Using the painting, Childhood Idyll for inspiration, learners reflect on things that are idealized. They focus in on pop music and pop idols, write a song, and perform it in front of the class, American Idol style.
Curated OER
Melodic and Harmonic Intervals
If you are teaching music and need a resource to demonstrate melodic and harmonic intervals, you're in luck. This hand out describes and shows what melodic and harmonic intervals look like on a staff.
Curated OER
Treble Clef Lines and Spaces - 3
In this treble clef lines and spaces worksheet, students read the sheet music and identify the letter names of the notes that are missing as they fill in 36 blank spaces.
Curated OER
Bass Clef Lines - 2
In this bass clef lines sheet music worksheet, students read the sheet music and identify the bass clef lines that are missing as they fill in 31 spaces.
Curated OER
Bass Clef Lines - 3
For this bass clef lines sheet music worksheet, learners read the sheet music and identify the bass clef lines that are missing as they fill in 30 spaces.
Curated OER
Treble Clef Lines - 2
In this treble clef lines worksheet, students read the sheet music and identify the letter names of the notes that are missing as they fill in 30 blank spaces.