Lesson Plans & Teaching Examples
Black Musicians Who Changed Music
When I stumbled upon this unit on Teachers Pay Teachers (linked here!) I was engaged by its ability to reach different age groups. For grades 4th and 5th we did daily class listening as well as the scavenger hunt that came with the bundle. They older students enjoyed the activity and sharing in groups. For grades K-3 we did more full group listening and discussion of the musicians.
March Madness Bracket!
March also known as "Music in Our Schools Month"! Through this month I enjoy celebrating music in out lives, and exposing students to different styles of music. Students work in large and small groups learning about specific genres, and listen to two musical examples from each genre. We discuss style, form and how we engage in conversation/speech about music. Take a look at the bracket from 2022! Take a look at my March Madness PPT I used in conjunction with the bracket!
Collaborative Digital Spaces
Through asynchronous teaching, it is definitely tiresome putting out instruction videos, and not seeing student feedback and decision making. Through Google Slides, I have been assigning collaborating spaces for classes to create and share their ideas!
This lesson was from our Lunar New Year Unit! Students learned about the legend Nian, the scary monster who pestered townspeople. The students learned about what scared Nian, and put those items into a spoken rhythm composition to scare him away. This lesson assessed filling in a common time measures using quarter and eighth notes.
This lesson was from our Music in Our Lives Unit! This collaborative space asked student to focus on the function of music in their lives. The topics we focused on were music as physical response, symbolism, and communication. This "brain dump" or listing activity provided me insight on what students are listening to, and where they are connect music to in their life.
The Rise of the Digital Classroom
So, I'm pretty sure we all can agree that Covid-19 has overstayed its welcome, even though it wasn't welcomed at all. Amongst teacher pages on Facebook, I kept seeing the creation of GoogleSilde Classrooms! So I took my shot at it! Please enjoy my Digital Classroom! I'll explain each "room" as pictured.
This is the main part of the "Music Room". Basically, every week there will be new activities attached to the objects in the room. For instance, the Grand Staff would have a Music Literacy activity of reading the notes staff, and the Piano would have a link to a weekly singing activity.
I wanted to do a take on instrument families, as well as timbres of the instruments through remote learning. Attached to every musical instruments in the "closets" a famous work/solo piece showcasing the instrument chosen. Students would get to experience these classical instruments in a more untraditional way such as using classical orchestral music. A multitude of the videos are contemporary, and arrangements of songs students might know.
Showcasing World Instruments actually couldn't be easier with the Digital classroom platform! Many schools might not own an accordion, Taiko drum or Didgeridoo! In my digital classroom we have them! This page I plan to update more frequently to allow variety and exposure to cultures and instruments within that culture! Finding resources/performances for these instruments has been extremely fun, and I hope to put it into practice whether that be through students remote learning, or bringing this page into the physical classroom.
The goal of the Composer's Corner is to have students engage with more Composer history and professional works created by them. In each frame, there will be an image of a composer. Students will be able to click the image of the composer, which will take them to a biography of the composer they chose. Also on the composer will be a pair of headphones just like the one my Bitmoji is wearing. Students will be able to click the headphones on said composer, and listen to one of the composer's works! I plan to change this page about once a month. Students will have options to listen to any one composer a week.
One thing I really worried about with students being home was the lack of instrumentation. Instruments make music even more fun then it already is! So I created a document that explains how one can make instruments out of different materials in their house. For instance, bottles/ can be used with waterlines to be blow into. I also found a video with how to make a "glass xylophone" with waterlines and tapping the glass with spoons! truly we can make anything musical!
Last but not least, the Calm Corner! This probably was my favorite page to find resources for. There is a BIG push in many of the districts in my area for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). Who can blame them? At a time like this, I think we need SEL more than ever. Students can click the posters for different activities. The poster of the person will lead to guided meditations and affirmations, while the lotus flower poster has some awesome kid yoga videos that talk about different attributes of SEL such as compassion, empathy, and and self-esteem.
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Check out this channel for some of those great videos! Alo Yoga
Adapting to Remote Learning!
I'm pretty sure we all can agree that the swift change to "distance learning" has all caught us by surprise. Covid-19 has pulled us from the classrooms, and disrupted daily life. This has put a damper on us all, however, teachers are resilient! This video definitely took time and patience to put together, but was worth it in the end.
In this remote lesson, students will discover how high and low sounds relate to the bass and treble clef through listening. It was designed for elementary students (mostly for 2nd and 3rd graders) without any other music materials due to the lack of items in a household. My goal was to make this lesson completely self sufficient and not taxing to the students abilities. At the end of the day, students have so much going on, just as us teachers during this time. This 8 minute video has students experience through a tangible process, and that's better than no music learning at all!
Fifth Grades Examples
I had the opportunity to design a unit to introduce Rondo form to fifth grade students.
Students experienced form through listening, identifying, creating and performing.
I specifically focused on Rondo form with these students.
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Students listened to Viennese Musical Clock, by Zoltan Kodàly, and found the form using magnetic shapes.
Students then created rhythms, for A B and C sections to create their own rondo.
Students were given two measures in common time to fill with quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes.
Students transferred different note values to different body percussion patterns for a dynamic rondo performance.
Student Work
The reason I had students use body percussion was to add the element of internalizing steady beat physically. To prepare students for their own body percussion creations, we performed a body rondo titled Alpha Four from the book The Body Rondo Book by Jim Solomon.
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Students were introduced to utilizing different rhythms in with different body percussion movements.
Activities for Students with Special Needs
With the groups of students who have varying special needs, I have been incorporating a lot of movement activities that embed the focus of direction following.
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These students all varying levels of Autism.
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Below are a few recordings that I like to use for these classes.
Some of them can include a parachute/movement aids.
This recording is pretty self explanatory which I like! Students can really listen and react. The only thing I recommend is having polly spots or squares that the students stay in especially for the "run" section.
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I typically pause the recording when the directions say to put the movement to the sounds. I think it's important to recap what movements we did. Since the recording plays in the same order the second time, it is pretty helpful to ensure student success with the activity.
I typically don't show the video to this recording because I don't like how they're on hay bales. It's weird and out of context. My students don't need to fixate on that. Also isn't it a fall hazard? I have a lot of questions!
I introduce it as playing freeze dance, and that "you stop when the music stops". This can be done with or without a parachute/movement aid, but depending on the class, I like to have a parachute so students can feel when their classmates stop. It's a good peer modeling tool since these students are at different levels of understanding.
Besides the Cupid Shuffle being a HIT song, this version has a more relaxed tempo. I prefer to use a parachute with this song. I'll have students more to the left and right when the recording says, and for the "Kick" we'd shake. Then I usually do an up down motion for the "walk it by yourself". This recoding really just provides a back beat tempo for movements, so you really can make up your own!