Noah Galbreath’s Unit Plan 8/24 - 12/18

Grade 5 General Music Class

Objectives:

- Explore new meters and rhythmic patterns using familiar modes

and solfege.

- Whole part whole work to put together songs in parts and learn
together.

- Opportunities for soloists and different groups of students

doing different parts of songs.

- Independent and collaborative rhythmic improvisation with

voices and percussion instruments.
Lesson Plan I

Objectives:

- Familiarize students with rhythms in duple meter such as 4/4 and 2/4 by listening to song
examples and call and response
- Encourage student creativity by allowing students to make up their own rhythms based
on what they’ve learned
- Familiarize students with percussion instruments such as bongos and maracas
- Wind lesson plan forward and back for students at different levels and find ways to
challenge students who pick up the concepts more easily
- Emphasize call and response singing at the beginning of each lesson as well as
clapping and stomping
- Emphasize “keeping the steady beat” and use that as a basis for other rhythmic activities

Core Arts Standard:​ Connecting

Students will be able to connect to music they listen to, as duple is the most common meter,
and this unit will introduce rhythms that are present in lots of different musics throughout the
world. Students will also be able to connect with each other in a collaborative environment
through singing and playing percussion instruments.

Opening Activity: ​Keeping the Steady Beat (​ 5:00)

- Emphasize keeping a beat while using a familiar mode and singing

- Gets students up and moving
- Call and response

Activity I:​ Call and response using unpitched percussion instruments (7:00)

- Let students pick their drum and allow multiple opportunities for switching. If there aren’t
enough drums students will share or clap along and trade off.
- Allow some time for unstructured exploration of sounds, not too long though. Get
students attention using something like “123 eyes on me”
- “Keep the steady beat in your feet”
- Once the beat has been established, begin playing call and response rhythms
- Let a student be a rhythm leader if they feel confident
Activity 2:​ Groups of 2 playing ostinato rhythms (5:00)

- Call on student to make up a rhythm (or make one up if no one wants to)
- Have half of the room play that rhythm
- Add another rhythm on top of it
- Change the ostinato for group one and alternate who plays which rhythm
- Keep the steady beat the entire time

Activity 3: ​Row Row Row Your Boat ​and ​Frere Jacques​ as rounds (5:00)
- Put away the drums and allow students to ‘shake it out’
- Sing familiar songs in rounds and emphasize the steady beat
- Put the songs together using whole part whole
- Emphasize dynamics (“can we make it really quiet?”)
- Two part and maybe try three part

Closing Activity:​ ​Into the Unknown​ from Frozen 2 play-along (3:00)

- Keep the steady beat for the song
- Count along (briefly explain 4/4 - come back to it later)
- Sing along if you know it!
- Clap rhythms from song together
- Ask students how the song made them feel

Possible Modifications:
- Pacing: could have less emphasis on multiple part work if students are struggling with
the call and response rhythms or even keeping a steady beat
Lesson Plan II

Objectives:

- Familiarize students with rhythms in triple meter such as 6/8 and ¾ by listening to song
examples and call and response
- Teach students to differentiate between triple and duple meter, use counting games and
syllables such as ta ti ti, and ta ka
- Encourage student creativity by allowing students to make up their own rhythms based
on what they’ve learned
- Listening to and discussing different world music that uses triple meter
- Keep winding forward and back

Core Arts Standard:​ Responding

Students will be able to discuss how they feel about different types of world music. Students will
be able to demonstrate and explain the difference between duple and triple meter.

Opening Activity: ​Happy Birthday​ (3:00)

- Pick a students whose birthday is close or that day

- Everyone sings happy birthday
- Explain how the song is in 3 and have everyone sing it again while swaying

Activity 1: ​Amazing Grace (​ 7:00)

- Learn in whole part whole (start with solfege, have them guess the song)
- Sway to the beat (emphasize ¾)
- Sing it unison
- Group of students sing ta ti ti ostinato while other group sings the melody (sol do do)
- Keep swaying
- Perform in two parts
- “What was the difference between that and the frozen song we listened to the other
day?”

Activity 2:​ Listening to Afro-cuban music in 6/8 and Latin American clave rhythms (7:00)

- Present several different styles of bembe drumming and relate it to modern music
examples from the countries they originated from
- Present examples of latin clave patterns and encourage students to keep the steady
beat, relate it to modern music
- Ask students to talk about how the music made them feel
- “What about this music is different from music you hear in America?” “What is similar?
Activity 3:​ Listening game (5:00)

- Students will sway when it’s in triple and stomp in duple

- Play different examples
- Ideas to change it up: students move in duple, freeze in triple, clap with a partner in
duple, clap alone in triple

Closing Activity:​ ​The Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers ​(3:00)

- Call and response with solfege on first verse

- Whole part whole
- Sing the song back in solfege
- Sing the lyrics to them (“Aren’t these lyrics sad?”)

Possible Modifications:

- Modality: Could change up the schedule so students spend more time on the listening
game for a more kinesthetic approach depending on how they respond to it
Lesson Plan III

Objectives:

- Continue to differentiate between triple and duple meter

- Develop improvisation in these meters as they become more familiar
- Reintroduce percussion instruments from earlier along with pitched instruments such as
xylophones
- Encourage students to discuss how rhythms make them feel and what they can relate
them to based on their own musical preference

Core Arts Standard:​ Creating

Students will be encouraged to create their own rhythms and interact in a spontaneous way
together now that they are more familiar with the established meters. Students will be creating
music that relates to what they listen to and what they’re heard in class. Lots of discussion is
encouraged. Longer time spent on less activities to allow for more creativity.

Opening Activity: ​Rhythm game (5:00)

- More variations with duple and triple meter game

- Class gets a “surprise” if they get them all right
- Chance for students to get up and active

Activity I:​ Percussion Instrument call and response (10:00)

- Keep the steady beat

- Call and response rhythms while keeping the steady beat
- Start in duple then go to triple, start to mix the two
- Call on student leaders
- “Can you play me a rhythm in triple/duple meter?”
- Ask students to identify what they’re playing in
- Experiment more with dynamics and emotions (let’s play this like we’re mad)

Closing Activity:​ ​Mary Had A Little Lamb​ on melodic percussion instruments (10:00)

- Group 1 with hand percussion, group 2 with xylophones

- Everyone learns mary had a little lamb and plays it with the steady beat (is this duple or
triple?)
- Students pick a rhythm to play as an ostinato on hand percussion, group 2 plays mary
had a little lamb over the beat (can you sing along while you play?)
- Switch groups
Possible Modifications:

- Pacing: speed up the pacing and recycle some activities if students are getting
restless/need more structure
- Modality: Include more aural instruction if the students seem tired of the rhythmic
exploration, give them prompts or include more singing
Lesson Plan IV

Objectives:

- Introduce simple rhythmic notation

- Introduce uncommon odd meter such as 7/4 or 5/4
- Continue to engage with students and ask them what works and what doesn’t (“What do
you want to do today?” “Who wants to lead us today?”)
- Encourage students to draw on rhythms and patterns they’ve heard in their favorite
songs
- Continue to explore ideas as a group and give more or less instruction as needed

Core Arts Standard:​ Performing/Presenting/Responding

Students will be encouraged to perform and discuss what they’ve learned. Students will be
encouraged to engage with new meters while using their confidence in familiar rhythms to guide
them. Students will demonstrate what they’ve learned through being creative and providing
some of the structure for the class themselves.

Opening Activity: ​Hello Everyone (​ 3:00)

- Students get to explain how they are feeling

- Add in what do you want to do today?
- Keep the steady beat

Activity I:​ Introduce Rhythmic notation (7:00)

- Use a visual model to explain the difference between eighth notes and quarter notes
- Ta ki ta ki taaa (shh for rests)
- Use rhythmic syllables and show them examples in triple and duple using ¾ and 4/4 only
for now
- Keep the steady beat and clap along while saying the syllables
- Can half of the class read one rhythm while the other half reads another?
- Who can be louder with their rhythms?
- Who can be the quietest?
- Who wants to demonstrate on their own?
- This sets us up for the next unit that focuses more on notation

Activity 2:​ Percussion (12:00)

- Mary Had a Little Lamb g ​ roup performance (take a video for their parents!)
- Interactive call and response rhythms
- Students choose three notes to repeat and make a rhythm for melodic instruments
 - I teach them a few rhythms in ⅞ and 5/4 without mentioning that they are in those
meters (“this one sounds a little different but you all are so good at this”)
- Have two groups in odd meter ostinatos

Closing Activity:​ Christmas song in ⅞

- Stomp in ⅞ pattern and have students join in

- 2 different groups - one sings ostinato “ho ho ho” while other sings lyrics
- Repeat after me with ho ho ho
- Teach song in whole part whole
- Lyrics: Christmas time is here
Waiting on the snow
So much hope and cheer
How I love it so
- Repeat after me for whole thing
- Put it all together

Possible Modifications:

- Pacing: This is largely about student feedback, I would modify the lesson based mostly
on what students want to do but provide more or less structure based on what I see.
- Color: this could be useful for clarifying the written notation, possibly adding different
colors for different note values
 Formal Assessment Criteria:

- Students will demonstrate that they can repeat call and response
rhythms and create their own during the “final drum circle
performance” of the unit

- Students will be able to explain why they made those choices of

rhythm and how it made them feel to engage with other students

- Students will be able to keep the steady beat

- Students will be able to differentiate between triple and duple meter

(by swaying or stomping and through the stop and go game)

- Students will feel confident performing ostinatos in separate groups

that compliment each other