Lets Play Music Lesson Plans

These lesson plans are intended to demonstrate how to put together a structured 30 minute lesson using the songs and activities from the Let’s Play Music website. Each week we will take a different theme and aim to develop a broad base of musical skills in singing, listening, percussion, pitch, rhythm and understanding.

Ideally the songs should be sung together during the class with some form of accompaniment, piano or guitar would be great but kids are still perfectly happy just singing along together with the percussion instruments instead.

If you work through the material for each lesson plan as listed, it should last around 30 mins, but it is always important to be flexible. Sometimes one activity might be particularly successful and you’ll want to do it for longer, or sometimes things don’t go quite as planned, so it’s always important to have a few old favourites ‘up your sleeve’. Circle games and Circle time songs are always popular, and you can just slot them in if you have a few spare minutes to fill. Choose a quieter activity if they need to settle or something lively if they need to work off the wiggles!

The Hello Song which is at the beginning of every lesson can also be used as a Goodbye Song, this works particularly well in a music class where the children just come together for a weekly session. It’s a great way to get started and bring the class to a close and helps little ones to understand the routine. If the music lesson is just a part of the normal school day, you may prefer to leave it out.

In the interest of clarity and ease of use, I have tried to avoid making these plans too wordy, and so only give in-depth directions for the more unusual or original activities. However, all the material can be found for reference on the Let’s Play Music website. Search for the titles in bold using the search box on the right hand side of the homepage, to check for more details.

http://www.letsplaykidsmusic.com What Is The Weather Today? Lesson Plan

Focus - A lesson plan that explores all the different types of weather.

• Learning the solfege scale, playing bars and encouraging singing.

• Practicing the steady beat with rhythmic actions, developing listening skills, tapping rhythms and introducing notation.

• Encouraging the use of imagination through actions and imaginative movement.

• Building new vocabulary, confidence, social skills and playing a variety of different percussion instruments.

This lesson is suitable for children from 21/2 - 7 years and should take around 35 mins. You will find that many of the activities can be used again separately whenever you need a short musical activity or a bit of lively movement. Depending on the time you have available and the ages of the children, you may prefer to leave out the Weather Rhythm Game activity and play Here We go Round The Mulberry Bush instead. Props needed:

• Resonator or chime bars • A variety of percussion instruments • The printable sheet music and resources below • A puppy-dog puppet • Box of small toys and trinkets for the treasure game

1. Say Hello Song (see blog for suggested tune and actions) https://www.letsplaykidsmusic.com/say-hello-hello-song-for-kids/

2. Chime bar/resonator hunt - If you have separate resonator bells for teaching the Do-Re-Mi scale, kids love playing hide and seek with them. Hide the 8 bells around the room and tell the children to go and find them. When they’ve got them all, they can try to sort them into the correct order. Start by asking which note goes first and then build the scale together one by one, prompting them with colour clues as needed. Once all the notes are present and correct, let the children take turns to play the scale while everyone sings along. Check Introducing The Chime Bars on the blog for more details. https://www.letsplaykidsmusic.com/fun-music-theory-do-re-mi/

3. Introduce What Is The Weather Today? by playing the tune first on the chime bars - the children will pick it up straight away as it’s the same as Hickory Dickory Dock and you can change the words in red to match the current weather.

4. What is the weather today? (see the sheet music below) Oh what is the weather today? It’s cold and grey, it’s cold and grey, That is the weather today. (insert appropriate words to describe the weather)

Sing and play together with percussion instruments, repeat the song four contrasting times - each time recognising the difference i.e fast, slow, soft, loud.

5. Magic Feet Follow The Beat! By now the children will be ready for some movement. Use the sheet below to play this game, it’s a brilliant way to have some fun with some lively movement, while learning and practicing the concept of note values. Use a to tap the beat, and once they have ‘rubbed the magic on their feet’, they are really in the mood to stamp around with giant steps like Daddy whole note (semibreves) or march like Big Brother 1/4 note (crotchets) or run along with little fast steps like The Little 1/8 Note Twins (quavers). When they’ve got the of each different note and the sound and action it makes, you can experiment with making them guess which one you are playing and try to catch them out, or each child can have a go at tapping the correct beat when you call out the note.

6. Weather Together Circle Game (see sheet below) Frosty weather, snowy weather, When the wind blows, we all go together. (spin round and huddle into the middle) Sunny weather, sunny weather, (move arms like sun’s rays) When the sun shines, we all play together. (hold hands and jump up & down) Rainy weather, rainy weather, (wiggle fingers like raindrops) When the rain falls, we put up an umbrella. (put up pretend umbrella) Windy weather, windy weather, (woosh arms around) When the wind blows we fly a kite together! (fly a pretend kite) Stormy weather, stormy weather, (spin around on the spot) When a storm comes we cuddle up together! (huddle with arms round each other) Hold hands and move around in a circle. Sing each verse a couple of times as you demonstrate the actions for each of the different types of weather - the children are very quick to join in and especially keen on the cuddle at the end!

7. Walking Through The Raindrops Walking through the raindrops, Walking through the raindrops, Walking through the raindrops, What did I see? A wet little puppy, A wet little puppy, A wet little puppy……..shaking over me!! (see the sheet music below for rest of the verses) Invite the children to play along together as you sing this song with percussion instruments and then pick out just the wooden ones, or the metal ones or the shakers to have a turn on their own. Put the instruments away and then sing the song again with the help of a puppy- dog puppet - who acts out the shaking, shivering, panting and jumping and encourages the children to join in.

• Weather Rhythm Game - Print off the sheet below and mount and cut out the rhythm cards. These cards can be used in a variety of ways depending on the age of the children and the time you have available. For younger ones - this activity is more of a recognition, matching and naming game. Read out the cards, clapping the rhythms as you say the words - encouraging the children to clap the rhythm back to you like an echo. The easiest way to play with these is a straightforward game of pairs, and then play a pointing and naming guessing game - if they can’t quite manage naming them, then pointing will do. Toddlers might not grasp the exact rhythms and words, but it’s all excellent listening practice and an invaluable part of the learning process. For older children you can make the game a little more challenging:

• First work through the same steps as before to make sure that they are familiar with the cards and rhythms.

• You can turn it into a listening game by choosing different percussion instruments to represent each type of weather. This is a great way to involve the kids too, but of course depends on the percussion instruments you have to hand.

• You could try something like for stormy weather, and shakers for the wind, bells for snow and triangles for sunshine - It’s a great way to get creative!

• Once you have decided which instrument belongs to which rhythm card, hide the cards in a bag, the children then pick a card and try to remember which instrument to choose to tap the rhythm and make the matching weather sound.

8. Movement to two contrasting pieces of music: You can play these contrasting youtube tracks or you may have other favorites! The Storm - Yanni Live concert www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKdbTJmNAE4 Bailero - Chants D’Auvergne - Cantaloube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxspdNcRuWk The children can choose different percussion instruments to suit the mood of the music and express this with free movement - drums and for the storm and bells and triangles for the calm music would work well.

9. Finish off with the Treasure Game if time allows, and the Goodbye Song which is the same tune as the Hello Song, but you can just swap around the actions - we always like to finish off very fast!! (see blog for both of these activities) https://www.letsplaykidsmusic.com/treasure-a-musical-game-for-guessing/

• Say Hello • Chime bar hunt - • What is the weather today? sing with percussion (printable sheet) • Magic Feet Follow The Beat (printable sheet) • Weather Together Circle Game (printable sheet) • Walking Through The Raindrops - sing first 2 verses with percussion instruments (printable sheet) • Sing all the verses with puppy puppet and actions • Weather rhythm game (printable sheet) - weather whispers • Musical movement - play suggested tracks and improvise to music first stormy, then calm weather music • Play the treasure game. • Say Goodby

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