Here at the Mobile Music School, we understand that some primary school teachers may not be comfortable teaching music. That’s why we have compiled a set of complimentary lesson plans to help out! This set of easy to follow lesson plans has been designed for primary school teachers, helping them to teach music in the classroom, and are all based on the primary school music curriculum. Each plan has a theme, or story, and the teacher guides the class through the story, asking students questions along the way. These skills are intended to be developed over the eight weeks, so don’t be disheartened if the children don’t fully grasp the concepts straight away!
For this week’s lesson, we will focus on The Marching Band.
Aims and Objectives
1 – Enhance each child’s understanding of the music that surrounds them
2 – Develop each child’s ability to interact with music by clapping and stamping the beat
3 – Increased aural awareness through the recognition of musical instruments
4 – Increased musical awareness by stating whether the music was loud or soft
Music Resources
Musical expert of ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ by Sousa
Picture of a marching band/ video of a marching band
Activity 1
Count 1 2 3 4 as a class. Count this a few times, and then add a clap to the counting.
Q: Who remembers what this counting is called from our last music lesson?
A: The beat.
Activity 2
Tell children ‘Today we are going to learn some more about the beat. There is one type of place that the beat is really important in.’
Q: Can anyone guess what this is?
A: A parade
Q: Put you hand up if you have ever been to a parade before?
Q: When you were at the parade were there any music groups or bands playing?
Q: Does anybody know what type of band marches like soldiers and plays music at the same time?
A: A marching band
Q: Hands up if you would like to hear a marching band?
Activity 2
Teacher – Explain to the class that you would like them to put their best set of listening ears on and listen to all the lovely sounds that the marching band can make.
After listening to a section of the excerpt ask the children to tell you what they heard.
Activity 3
Q: Who is the boss in the marching band?
A: In a marching band the drum line is in charge. This means that everybody has to listen to the drums and make sure they are playing to the correct beat.
Q: Hands up if you think you would be able to catch the beat the drum line sets?
Put on the musical excerpt and encourage the children to clap along to the beat of the music. Make sure everybody is listening and trying their best to clap in time.
After everybody has managed to clap in time get the class to stamp or march to the beat of the music.
Activity 4
Put on the excerpt and get the class to clap and then to stamp. At certain times the music is loud or soft. Get the class to clap loud or soft as required.
Keywords – BEAT, DRUMLINE, DYNAMICS, TEMPO
Strands – Listen & Responding, Performing
Part Three, Call and Response, coming soon……
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