It’s summer! Finally! So why is Denise sending newsletters in the summer??? The next newsletters will be on year plans, month outlines, weekly lesson plans and sub plans. For my American friends who start school in early August, July might be the time that you’re getting your planning done. And for my Canadian teachers who start later, (and for our Australians who are still mid-year) save this information for later.
Lesson planning begins with your curriculum. You need to know the outcomes that you’re expected to achieve by the end of the school year. For me, I’ve put the skills/concepts into a scope and sequence that shows which grade a particular concept or skill is introduced in. In the Musicplay scope and sequence, ex stands for experience. The Scope and Sequence for Rhythm is given below.
(The full scope and sequence for Musicplay is found in the Musicplay Teacher’s guides, or can be downloaded from the Lesson Planning Section at www.musicplayonine.com.)
The Lesson Planning section is found on the left menu of your computer screen. There is a wealth of material there to help you with your planning!
In kindergarten children will learn that music moves to a steady beat. They’ll experience the difference between beat and rhythm. They’ll experience that there are strong and weak beats, and they’ll experience that beats can be grouped in 2s, 3s or 4s. The stars in grade 1 indicate that the children will learn all of those concepts.
Your scope and sequence may differ from this, but this is a great starting point – download and print from Musicplayonline.com (Lesson Planning Section) and then highlight the skills you have in your district or state document.
Denise has created a scope and sequence with songs that teach the concept that is available online in the lesson planning section. This is just a small part of the Beat and Rhythm Sequence with songs to teach the concept.
When you are in a situation with older students who haven’t mastered concepts from earlier grades, you have to teach those basic concepts before moving on.
Musicplay is a spiralling curricuum, and there is review of basic concepts in every grade. So, basic concepts such as beat/rhythm are reviewed/taught in every grade level. Ta and Ti-ti (quarter and 8th note rhythms) are reviewed/taught in each grade – but with age appropriate games/activities.
Note: There are ta and ti-ti songs in every grade to use to teach/review/assess beat and rhythm.
So, once you’ve decided on a realistic sequence of concepts/skills that you can do with your students, chart the months and decide when you can teach them, and use the song list to decide on the songs you’ll use to teach those concepts. The Musicplay Grade 1 Year plan is shown below. You can download these from the Lesson Planning section and adapt this for your own use.
This week, Denise walks you through the overview section of setting up your lesson plans for the year. This also inlcudes scopes and sequences for each grade, songs lists for grade PreK to 5, and more details for your Year Plans!
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