lesson plans

Teacher Doreen Steinmacher created this 7-week virtual unit on music from the movies. Each unit essential questions, learning objectives, 3 student tasks, editable assessments, and extra assignments. Teachers can easily adapt and use each unit individually or use them as presented.

Price: Free

Teacher Theresa Sharp created this PDF resource.  The pages provide teachers with public domain songs, activities, and assessments for teaching the element ti. For each grade level there are links to videos, editable worksheets, and differentiated lesson ideas for teaching synchronously and asynchronously. Download the PDF for free right here!

Price: Free

Link

Lesson Planet provides music educators with a range of dependable, high-quality lesson plans. Those with memberships to this site have access to 10,000+ resources created by music educators for music educators. Lesson Planet also generates music-specific resources with more than 80 AI teacher tools.

Price: Free trial available, $4-7 per month for membership

Link: Lesson Planet

BrainPOP is perfect for elementary general music teachers. Topics include basic note reading, scales, and harmony as well as famous musicians and instrument families.  Each topic comes with several interactive activities/games and a video lesson. Some activities and lessons are free, but the teacher account has access to full lesson plans with standards.

Price: Limited free access, paid subscription for full access

Link: BrainPOP

Teachers Pay Teachers is the world’s most popular online marketplace for original educational resources with more than four million resources available for use. It features ideas for every topic: lesson plans, worksheets, games, and other activities for any age.

Price: Free and paid resources

Link: Teachers Pay Teachers

This website is ideal for orchestra directors in need of lesson plans and ideas. It features podcasts, blogs, video lesson plans, and worksheets in a wide range of subject areas. Subject matter ranges from practice videos to specific musical concepts, and is great for all things string!

Price: Free

Link: OrchestraTeacher.net

This site is designed for music educators who need help using technology! In 12 online courses, teachers can learn how to use programs such as GarageBand, Mixcraft, Sibelius, Audacity and more. There are lesson plans to go along with each course, and the program will help you understand iPads, Chromebooks, Macs, and PCs. There are a few free resources in addition to those included in the subscription.

Cost: $39 per month or $390 per year

Link: Midnight Music

This resource helps teachers with distance learning options that do not involve as much writing, but still engage students in learning. Providing three different possibilities for podcast models, this unit take students step-by-step through the process of creating, writing, recording, editing, and publishing a podcast. The PDF download includes editable student worksheets for multiple levels of learners.

Cost: Free During Covid-19

Link: Choral Connections: Podcast Project

This program teaches general music skills as well as guitar, ukulele, bass, and piano through popular music. The free teacher membership includes a selection of pop and rock music that students can play along with. The interactive play-along mode shows the hand positions and chords in real time while following along on the score. For teachers, there is a collection of lesson plan ideas to use with the program. In addition to the website, Solfeg.io can be used with the app, which is available on all mobile platforms.

Price: Free (Basic plan), Paid ($249, $799, and $1349 per year plans)

Link: Solfeg.io

This video offers a sample elementary-level french horn masterclass. If you want a customized masterclass series for your band students, fill out the request form on this site. As always, MSL helpers are available to fill any need or vision you have for elementary through secondary videos on all instruments.

Price: Free

Link: Music Service Learning Sample Masterclass Video 

Mr. S Orff Music Educator is an Instagram page run by Matthew Stensrud, an elementary school music teacher and certified Orff Schulwerk clinician, with links to his website which provides additional links to other services such as YouTube videos and webinars. There are also links to a patron page where you can pay for lesson plans at any time, and his website includes access to a plethora of Orff-related educational resources.

Price: Free

Link: Mr. S | Orff Music Educator @mistersorff

Smithsonian Music provides general music teachers an online museum of World Music. Teachers can browse lesson plans, playlists, albums, and more by genre, geography, or artist. They also provide free podcasts, playlists, games, and lesson plans about world music for K-12 with four different levels.

Price: Free

Link: Smithsonian Music 

This resource is a great series on lesson plans centered around rhythm. Easy to use, teachers can gradually introduce duple and compound rhythms, syncopation and the Kodaly rhythm syllables.  Each lesson includes a summary text, listening examples and exercises.

Price: Free

Link: Talking Rhythm 

This an incredibly comprehensive website in music for students grades K-5. Having won many awards, the contents of this site include lesson plans for teachers, games for kids, guides for parents, and book reviews among many other resources. All lesson plans link National Standards and use a variety of teaching methodologies including Orff, Dalcroze and Kodaly.  The website also provides links to their podcast and radio broadcasts.

From the website:

“90.9 WGUC, Cincinnati’s classical music radio station, created Classics for Kids® as an entertaining, informative introduction to classical music for elementary school children. The six-minute radio program, also available as a podcast, explains classical music, composers, and terminology in easy-to-understand language that’s designed to appeal to audiences of all ages. The interactive multimedia website classicsforkids.com is a fun, engaging tool for teachers, parents, and kids. It’s full of information about music, including composer biographies, a dictionary of terms, guides to instruments from around the world, games, archives of all the Classics for Kids® podcasts, and much, much more.

The website also provides free, user-friendly materials to integrate music education into the curriculum. In addition to lesson plans, there are pages to explore rhythm, history, composition, and other aspects of music. All of that makes classicsforkids.com a valuable resource for classroom teachers and homeschoolers.”

Price: Free

Link: Classics for Kids

Jess Johnson’s Instagram Page, @musicandmotivate, shares creative and engaging ideas for the music classroom. This page offers instructional videos, lessons, activities, and interactive music making ideas. All one needs is an Instagram account for ease of access!

Price: Always Free

Link: @musicandmotivate on Instagram

All music teachers can find something of value in the “Music Educators Creating Online Learning” Facebook group. It contains resources for instrumental, choral, jazz, private instruction, general music, and more! This group is a “teachers-help-teachers” setting where anyone can post about a resource or ask a question to get advice. All one needs to access this is a Facebook account!

Price: Always Free

Link: Music Educators Creating Online Learning on Facebook

Middle School Chorus Directors Facebook Group is ideal for choir teachers who are looking for advice, new ideas, and resources to help strengthen their teaching. This Facebook group allows teachers to ask for help with classroom problems, post lesson plans and helpful resources, and serves as a source of inspiration. This group is always free with a Facebook account.

Price: Always Free

Link: MS Chorus Directors Facebook Group

In this easily adaptable activity for all music classes, students make choir memes. This activity works nicely as enrichment and/or extra credit. Students can easily collaborate in Google Classroom and make memes via Google Slides. This activity encourages student creativity and new ways of relating to material covered in choir rehearsal all in a lighthearted way.

Price: Free Always

Link: Choir Meme War

This resource helps choral teachers develop listening units for students in beginning, advanced, and/or collegiate methods or choirs. Based around the state festival system, students will think critically about their own music and the process of evaluation. The unit is adaptable for distance learning, homework, or in-class projects. The PDF download includes editable student worksheets for multiple levels of learners.

Price: Free during COVID-19

Link: ChoirEval_Final

Ideal for pre-kindergarten through third grade music class, this lesson plan teaches concepts such as rhythm or meter through the use of dance. Abigail Kramer designed this lesson using the song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. Her lesson plan includes standards, procedures, and assessment.

Price: Free Always

Link: Dance Lesson Plan

These lesson plan units and resources are ideal for educators planning lessons for third through sixth grade music. Created by Carole Corman, these lessons cover topics such as physics of music, music appreciation, music technology, music theory, and performance. The units also include assessments, worksheets, and additional resources. These lesson plan units are ideal for in-class activities, but are also adaptable to be done at a distance.

Price: Free Always

Link: Elementary General Music Lesson Plans

In this easily adaptable activity for all music classes, students make choir memes. This activity works nicely as enrichment and/or extra credit. Students can easily collaborate in Google Classroom and make memes via Google Slides. This activity encourages student creativity and new ways of relating to material covered in choir rehearsal all in a lighthearted way.

Price: Free Always

Link: Choir Meme War

This online or in-class unit serves all levels of choirs, including options for collegiate choral methods students. The step-by-step instructions take teachers and students through the process of building a choral concert program using YouTube videos. The PDF includes links to downloadable and editable assessments, and the page formatting makes the resource easy to download and give directly to students.

Price: Free During COVID-19

Link: Choral Connections YouTube Project

This take-home packet is ideally suited for lower elementary general music classes. Rather than all activities (four total) fitting into one unit, it gives a wide variety, focusing on giving students the chance to interact with music. Students will compose melodically and rhythmically, sing, and practice basic mallet technique. An interesting highlight is that the composition exercises ask the student to use items around the house as their note heads or to represent rhythms. Author: Music with Mrs. Dunc

Price: Free during COVID-19

Link: TakeHomePacketFREE