Here are more than 15 amazing resources for teaching classroom music, suitable for use by specialist and non-specialist teachers. We keep adding to these all the time, so check back here often!
This is a fun aural clapping game for just about any age group. The teacher claps a series of patterns, and the students echo. Then the teacher claps the “poison rhythm” which the students have learned in advance. If they clap, they’re out! Its loads of fun and educational at the same time.
A music composition lesson plan where students will create their own rhythms. They will use the concept of word association. Pizza ingredients put together terrific rhythm patterns!
This is a flexible idea which is usable in many different grade levels. The concept is simple. The teacher writes a tic-tac-toe board on the screen. Then a students needs. to “earn” the right to place a O or X on the board. They do this by identifying whatever musical symbol or concept the class is working on!
A full step-by-step lesson plan for teaching a music class their first bucket drumming performance piece called “Funky Buckets”
While most teachers know of echo clapping to be a standard “attention grabber”, music teachers can extend this simple habit into an amazingly effective way of getting students to listen better while teaching the aural/ listening component to any music curriculum.
A composition lesson with simple questions and answers suitable for early grades.
A fantastic little rhythm piece which is great fun for percussion instruments.
Learn how students can quickly move from singing a song through to learning some simple tuned percussion parts in grade two in a few easy steps.
Learn this wonderful fun action song called “Kye Kye Kule” to inspire grade one students to sing and play their first classroom instruments.
A fun way to introduce xylophones, glockenspiels and how to play simple repetitive patterns called ostinati.
These Treasure island quiz games will get your students to test their music theory knowledge while they find clues to answer the trivia treasure question at the end.
This Fun Music ebook provides crosswords and find-a-word puzzles to leave in the classroom for a substitute lesson or a quick five minute filler.
A fun beginning idea for grade three students to get into learning about some early rock and roll artists.
A fun music appreciation activity for junior high school students learning about some amazing music from Igor Stravinksy.
A music listening and appreciation lesson based on “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong. It’s a lesson designed to teach more than just the music.
A fun listening game for Boomwhacker tubes, suitable for grades Kindergarten to Grade 4
If you’ve ever wanted to teach or play Boomwhackers, but don’t know where to start, this video is an online play-along resource.
In a few minutes, your young students will be having fun playing this fun warm up tune called “Elephants Walk, Monkeys Run” on Boomwhackers.
We show you how to get students started in Garageband on iPads then move onto using the beats Sequencer tool within a few easy steps in this blog video post.
A complete lesson for GarageBand using iPads where students learn to create their own drum pattern using a function of the GarageBand software called the “manual drums”.
if you’ve ever wanted to get your students started with playing melody and chord patterns on their ukuleles, you can do it in minutes with these three fun beginning activities!
Many of these activities will need little or no equipment. Some may need a classroom whiteboard or display screen. You will also need a sound system, such as a high quality Bluetooth speaker so all of the instruments can be clearly heard.
Checkout our four outstanding music teaching ideas for more inspiration!
If you’re serious about teaching the K-6 Music Curriculum to its full potential and learn more about how all these smaller teaching ideas build into a full music curriculum, you might want to join one of our signature programs called the Fun Music Curriculum. It’s all laid out step by step and you don’t even have to do any extra preparation to get it started with your classes. You can learn more by watching this video:
