Tips on Lesson Planning for Music Teachers

Lesson planning is one of those things that needs to be done, but definitely isn’t fun.  But, when you plan lessons the right way, the class time will run a lot smoother.  These tips on lesson planning for music teachers will help you with how to successfully plan out an elementary music lesson from the beginning to the end of class.

 

Standards

The first thing to consider when lesson planning is the standards.  There are the National music standards and state standards.  There are even some districts that provide their own set of standards.  How do you know which standards to follow?  This can all get a bit confusing.  If your district or state provides standards for you to teach, use those.  If not, then follow the National music education standards.

Now that you know which standards to teach from, I’m going to break down the steps in including these in your lesson plans.

 

Highlight the 9 weeks standards

There will be specific standards that you will be teaching each 9 weeks.  Highlight what these standards are and you’ll be able to plan lessons around them.

 

Look at the ongoing standards

After you’ve highlighted the specific 9 weeks standards, look at the rest of the standards.  Most of the time, these standards are pretty vague.  So, it’s up to you which 9 weeks you want to teach them in.  Some of the standards like teaching melody, rhythm, and steady beat will be ongoing and pretty much included in each lesson.

When you’re creating your weekly lesson plan, you’ll probably be required to include the standards you’re working on that week.  This can be as simple as attaching the standards to your lesson plan including the ones you already highlighted.  For the ongoing standards, you could make a note in your lesson plan that these are ongoing, so you don’t have to reinsert them every week.

 

Objectives

The next thing you’ll focus on when lesson planning in elementary music is objectives.  The standards are what you’re required to teach before the end of the school year and the objectives are how you’ll teach them.  For example…if you’re teaching the standard “teaching rounds”, your objective might look like this…

While learning the song “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” students will be able to sing in tune while singing in a round.

The objective may include a bit more if you’re adding movement, instruments, or a game into the lesson.  But, the main thing you need to remember is that you’re basically explaining how exactly you’re going to teach the standards.

 

 

Content

After the standards and objectives, it’s time to dive into the content.  While typing up your lesson plan, you can either start with the objectives and standards or the content.  It’s really up to you how you want to do it.

Your lessons will include an intro, content, and the closing.   You won’t need to include all the details in your lesson plans, but just the main activities or songs you’ll be teaching.

Keeping the class time moving and having 3-4 transitions (depending on what you’ve planned) helps to keep the students engaged.  I talk about how to structure an elementary music class in this video.  Be sure to like my Facebook page so you never miss a live training.

When you’re just starting out, having the outline of what you’re teaching and how the class time will flow in front of you is super helpful.  Then, as you continue on your teaching journey, you’ll notice that the class time just flows like clock work.

 

Intro

The first part of your lesson will include the intro.  After greeting your students and having them go to their seats, you’ll begin the class time.  An intro will include a vocal warm-up, body percussion warm-up, a story, or a combination of any two of these.

The way to decide what intro you’re doing on a particular day is determined by what lesson you’re teaching.  For example, if you’re doing a bunch of singing on a certain day, start the class period with solfege or other vocal warm-ups.  If you’re working on music from African, then you could start the class period off by reading a story about the djembe.  Some of my favorite books to include in the music classroom can be found here. 

Review previous content

The next part of the lesson will be reviewing previous content.  This will obviously only need to be done if you have previous content to review.  What I mean by this is, if you started working on a new program with a certain grade level, review the song(s) you’ve already practiced.

Or, if you started learning a new song last time, and today you’re wanting to add a xylophone part to it, then you’ll want to review singing that song first.

If you don’t have any content to review, then you’ll just jump right into new content after the intro.

 

New content

So, now that you’ve reviewed previous content, you’re ready to dive right into the new content.  Each time you see your students, you’ll be working on a different objective.  Not only will the objectives change from week to week, but so will the content.

During any class period, try to have 2-3 activities that you do with your students.  These will include learning a variety of songs, instruments, games, centers, and movement activities or folk dances.  Not only that, you may be working on programs.  If you’re working on a program, spend no more than half the class period on it.  Then, use the rest of the class time on one of the other activities.  That way, your students are staying engaged and are still learning other content as well as the program.

If your students are used to your procedures, then no matter what content you teach, they’ll respond well to it.  You set your expectations and the students will follow suit.

 

Closing

For closing out a class period, you will start by having students clean up.  Then, when they’re back at their seats, you can ask popcorn questions about what they learned that day.  Or, you can even close out the class period by reading a book (if you didn’t already do that at the beginning of the class time.)  Of course, you need to leave enough time to line up the students and get them back to class and allow enough time for the next class to come in.

Whatever way you plan your content is up to you.  Your unique personality and teaching style is what makes you the perfect fit for your students.  If you try something and it’s not working, just go back to the drawing board and tweak it a little bit.  Lesson planning for music teachers can be frustrating, but I promise through trial and error, you’ll figure out how to teach your lessons effectively and efficiently.

 

Do you have ways you like to plan your weekly lessons?  I’d love to hear all about it in the comments below or share your thoughts on social media as you share this post.   

Also, I’d love for you to share this post or any of the resources on my website with a friend or colleague who you know NEEDS to see it.

P.S.  Are you feeling frustrated or stuck as an elementary music teacher?  Check out these free resources to help you teach elementary music with confidence!

Also…I wrote a book called “Make A Note: What You Really Need To Know About Teaching Elementary Music” to help music teachers move forward in your teaching career.  You can get your copy here.

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