This article hopes to give you an insight into how we create primary music lesson plans  here at the Fun Music Company.

In this post, I’ll be breaking down the essential elements to an primary music lesson. I’ll show you the strategies to cover every area of your music curriculum. Plus I’ll show you how to teach a fun primary music lesson as soon as tomorrow!

Who am I, and what do I have to offer?

My name is Janice Tuck, and I’m the creative director here at the Fun Music Company. I’ve been working with teachers here at the Fun Music Company to create resources, materials, and lesson plans for primary for over 20 years now.

So we know one or two things here about lesson planning!

Author:
Janice Tuck

Music teacher and creative director
of the Fun Music Company.

A lesson plan is a document that outlines what is going to happen in a lesson.

In its traditional form, it would include:

1. A statement of the learning outcome for the lesson.
2. A list of the resources and supplies needed for the lesson.
3. A list of activities that the students will complete.
4. A guideline for the amount of time required for each activity in the lesson plan
5. A guide for assessing the students learning and seeing how they meet the learning outcome.
6. A statement showing how the lesson supports the needs of state and/or national curriculum requirements.
7. A space for evaluation and reflection of the lesson and planning. This, should in theory, make for a more successful lesson from this topic in the future.

Now my question to anyone is:

How many teachers actually have time to create such a document for every single lesson they teach?

Not many, that is for sure!

When surveyed, 92%* of Australian teachers stated they didn’t have time to prepare adequately for their lessons.

Also … 86% of teachers reported they didn’t have time to create a lesson planning document for every lesson. 

Most teachers are typically required to teach most of the day. They may, if they’re lucky get one or two non-contact hours a week. In those few hours they have to fit in ALL their marking, planning, assessments, phone calls and correspondence. Either that, or they take their planning home, spending many hours in the evening and weekends. They then end up tired and burned out.

It’s no wonder that a recent survey* of over 3000 teachers showed that 78% are stressed. Furthermore 36% report experiencing burnout.

So… in short: the chance of teachers making a comprehensive elementary music lesson plan (like the one above) for every single lesson they teach is very unlikely!

We believe that this lesson type of planning process is unnecessary. Plus we believe it is actually CAUSING the stress that finds teachers leaving the profession!

It’s a myth that any music teacher should be preparing each lesson to this degree. Instead what music teachers need is a simple lesson planning system. A system which saves time on preparation and does not create more work and stress!

We have spent the past two decades of talking and learning from the best music educators in the world.

What is the #1 piece of advice we’ve learned?

CONNECTION and RAPPORT  with students is the most important skill that any music teacher can possess.

We believe all music teachers should have time in each lesson to think about their students and what their needs are.

Our wish is that any teacher should be able to show up and teach. They should have a step-by-step consistent program with the activities set. Then the planning is easily handled! It shouldn’t matter how much experience they have.

That’s exactly why we make our elementary music lesson plans simple and easy to use. They require little if any preparation time from the teacher.

What are the critical parts of a primary music lesson plan?

1 – A statement of the learning outcome for the lesson.
2 – The lesson activities

That is it. The rest of it should be handled by the overall program of lessons … not on an individual lesson basis.

Links to curriculum? That needs to be handled by the structure of the overall program that is put in place. A balance of activities linked to all the curriculum outcomes achieves this.

What about Assessments?  These can and should be handled by the framework of the overall program. Students in primary/elementary music should be assessed once or twice per school term. These assessments should be done in the easiest possible manner. To do more than that takes away time from valuable learning opportunities and FUN in every class.

The rest of it is either unnecessary, or can be handled by consistent repetition.

For example, creating a list of supplies for the grade level is often redundant. The instruments and resources we need for a grade are often the same for each lesson. Instead, organize the teaching space so that all instruments and resources are available when you need them.

This is a critical piece of the puzzle. In doing anything from making dinner to running for a leadership position, the first step is always to set an outcome.

A learning outcome is just an intention. However, if a teacher is doing this themselves they have to think  “ok … where do I start with creating a learning outcome?”

So they may start by looking at a curriculum document such as the Australian curriculum. Here they will find a statement such as this:

“manipulate elements of music to communicate ideas, perspectives and/or meaning when composing and practising for performance”

(from Australian curriculum v9, Music, Years 3 and 4)

However, this can leave any person feeling confused and vague about what to actually do!

This statement is not intended to be an outcome for ONE lesson. It’s intended to be a part of an overall structure of the entire course of instruction.

The Fun Music Company spend many hours thinking about these outcomes. We spend hours and hours thinking up ideas that focus on a section of the curriculum outcome. Then, we create an elementary music lesson plan around it.

We then work the entire program of lessons around and work out whether we have covered the entire statement.

For example in the COMPOSE section of Grade 3 we have a lesson for this curriculum statement were the learning outcome is:

“Students will work together in small groups to create an untuned percussion piece which tells a story using dynamics.”

So this lesson uses the musical element of dynamics – so students are manipulating an element of music.

They are also communicating perspectives and/or meanings through the means of telling a story.

There are similar lessons through our program for each of the elements of music: pitch, melody, rhythm etc.

It is our firm belief that teachers shouldn’t have to come up with lesson outcomes. They should be able to pick and choose from a list of lesson outcomes provided for them. They should be able to choose a lesson outcome that is suited to the needs of their class and go into the classroom to teach it. Total lesson preparation time: 5 minutes.

If a teacher has to come up with an idea for a lesson based on the curriculum outcome it will take anywhere from 3 to 4 HOURS to come up with a lesson idea and write the lesson plan.

And what teacher has time for an extra 3-4 hours of out-of-school preparation every night after the school bell rings?

(Stepping AWAY from the curriculum to the common sense corner for a moment)

Before I get into the lesson activities and how they are structured … I just want to take a moment to step AWAY from the curriculum, and think about what we are doing and why.

Music. That is the subject we are involved in.

As the great, late Richard Gill has said… “Music is important, and music is good.”

If you have not seen it, take a moment to watch Richard’s famous Ted-x talk from 2011:

Richard Gill was one of my mentors, a wonderful man and advocate for music education.

Richard passionately believed that children should be involved in SINGING and PLAYING music.

In this speech above, and in many of his speeches he said:

“Music is the RIGHT of every child, no matter where, and what the circumstance.”

Therefore, what we believe here at the Fun Music Company is that all music lessons should include singing and playing music actively.

So while the curriculum is very important, the means by which they need to access the curriculum must always include singing and playing, and children actively involved in music making.

Richard also says in his famous speech above:

“Through singing, is how we engage every child”
“Through singing, is how we teach children to be literate, to read and write”
“Through singing, is how we teach children to analyse.”

So while the curriculum is important, we have to make sure that we involve the singing and playing of music every single lesson. Also singing and playing is in the curriculum anyway, so its not like we’re doing anything different or contrary to the curriculum.

That is why in our Fun Music Company curriculum program we involve the singing and playing at every level, in every lesson.

So to plan our lessons, this is the basic structure that we work on when we create music lesson plans for the Fun Music Company curriculum.

1. A SKILLS warmup. (aligned to the curriculum.)

2. Singing and playing music (aligned to the curriculum.)

3. COMPOSE or CONNECT activities (aligned to the curriculum.)

At times, the COMPOSE or CONNECT activity can more than cover the entire lesson time, however there is still singing and playing instruments at the heart of what we do.

At times, the singing and playing music could take more of the lesson if needed – however the COMPOSE or CONNECT activity is always there.

This is a screenshot of an outline from our NEW Fun Music Company curriculum V2.0, from Grade 2:

In this lesson the students do a quick SKILLS warmup. They then get into singing and playing with a great song called Bow Wow Wow. Finally they do a COMPOSE activity developing sound and silence.

Here is a PDF of the lesson plan for the COMPOSE lesson guide for grade 2, so you can see how the sequence of lessons links to the curriculum.

So that’s it! We might have a little bit of a controversial view here at the Fun Music Company on the subject of lesson planning, because we believe in making things easier and better for teachers.

We believe that the old fashioned method (as listed above) for making a lesson plan should be assigned to the dustbin!

As we’ve described in this article, the two single most important factors in creating any primary music lesson plan are:

1. having an outcome in mind

and

2. having a set of fun planned activities that help you progress towards your specific class’s curriculum and learning needs.

Becoming an impactful music teacher is not about being the most skilled musician or singer or having all the answers upfront. It’s about having a systematized approach, being prepared to try new ideas and putting the needs of your students first.

So start by downloading our free music lesson activities by entering your details below.

* Teacher well-being survey by Education support UK. https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/resources/for-organisations/research/teacher-wellbeing-index/

Music Teaching ideas shape our classroom experiences. They impact rapport, engagement, and behavior. Retention rates are influenced too.

Teachers crave amazing, GREAT music teaching ideas. They engage and motivate our students.

Want the great NEWS? There’s no genius required. You don’t need to have expert skills in music. You don’t even need to be a musician!

But where do you start searching for music teaching ideas?

There are pros and cons!

Option 1: Use music teaching ideas that have worked for you before

Take one of your own ideas and build upon and expand it. But the question is : Where do you start? What ideas do you start with?

Option 2: Explore training and conferences

These opportunities can give great experiences. However, traditional in-person training can be expensive.

Option 3: Learn from other teachers’ online.

Today the internet gives us a wonderful gift. It allows us to connect with others doing the same job that wasn’t possible a generation ago.

We can connect through social media, through blogs, and through online communities. We can post and ask for ideas, and we can read through others’ suggestions.

The problem with that? We can drown in so much information, yet starve for ideas that WORK!

Hi, my name is Janice Tuck, and I’m a music teacher just like you. I’m also an author, speaker and co-owner of the Fun Music Company.

I’ve taught in every type of school from private and public, through to special needs. I have done private instrumental, classroom and preschool classes. I’ve taught young children and at secondary school.  So, in music teaching I’ve seen a LOT!

I created the Fun Music company to serve music teachers with outstanding teaching materials. Materials that are easily accessible and fun for students.

Today, I’m sharing my 4 work-every time music teaching ideas. These are the BEST ideas that grab my class’s attention.

GREAT music teaching ideas are those that:

Using these strategies will shift your own passion for teaching. It will allow you to create lasting impact with your students.

This is a simple, effective and fun rhythm listening game! It will get any class or group focused and listening in less than a minute. In the game children have to listen and echo rhythms that the teacher claps. However, not if the teacher claps the “poison” rhythm:

Everyone has seen a teacher clap a rhythm to get attention. It isn’t difficult to clap a rhythm and have a group of children echo.

The teacher can use any rhythms, depending on their experience teaching music.

Begin by randomly clapping rhythms like the examples below. Then clap the poison rhythm. If they copy it – they’re out!

They will also be out if they don’t play one that wasn’t the poison rhythm.

Children will get good at this quite quickly. You may wish to make it more difficult by varying the dynamics (volume) and the tempo (speed). This will make it more difficult to spot the poison rhythm.

There are many variations of this game in the Fun Music Company curriculum. We have chosen suitable patterns for each grade, and even provided suitably paced backing tracks and recordings. Therefore, you don’t even need to think up the patterns yourself!

Listening time. This is something that isn’t done enough. Yet, it can be one of the most powerful things we can do in music education!

We don’t recommend sitting your children down and pressing the play button on a long requiem or symphony! Expecting them to sit there and “appreciate” the music is madness. That just isn’t going to happen!

Instead, try this idea. In the middle of a lesson, put some music on in the background. You can use youtube or any other music source. Then have the children draw along or write with it playing in the background. We call this learning by exposure to music. You can use all kinds of music from different eras, cultures and genres.

Children will get used to hearing music while they study and work. Then, they will start asking questions about the music. Then give them a SQUILT listening journal page. They can then answer age-appropriate questions based on the music.

Then, use open and closed questioning techniques to further pique their curiosity.

If possible, we recommend using specifically crafted questions and activities for each piece of music. This is obviously very time-consuming to create yourself. That is why we have extended this area into CONNECT in our full K-6 music curriculum.

A pizza is something most of your students will be familiar with. Therefore, it becomes a great metaphor for making a “musical pizza!”

This is called word association and most music teachers will be familiar with it. The idea is that students associate familiar words with rhythm patterns.

What is great about a pizza as a source for word association?

It has toppings!

We can use the metaphor of a pizza to build a musical composition. This can encourage creativity and teach rhythm skill development at the same time.

You can do this as a warm-up while standing in a circle, or you can do it sitting on the floor.

Begin by clapping, or stamping the beat strongly saying “base”. Then, try clapping and saying some other “toppings” listed here:

Students can then make up their own four-beat rhythm, and the class can copy their rhythms.

Want to know one of the BIGGEST secrets to getting children excited about music? Just mention the word GAME and you’ll see the instant excitement in their faces!

When we first stumbled across this music teaching secret we thought it was just a simplistic game. However, what we found is that games such as this one encourage students to actively learn.

A game like this is an active learning strategy.

One of the biggest benefits of active learning is that they think they’re just playing a game! However, they’re actually learning! They are developing real musical reading skills and knowledge. This knowledge can be used later for performing and creating music.

And that’s why we include active learning strategies throughout the Fun Music Company curriculum.

Step 1: Prepare in advance a set of flashcards. This can be from a music theory or Musicianship topic you are working on. Younger students may use a set of pictures of different musical instruments. Older students might use a set of music theory symbols or musical terms.

Step 2: Draw a classic “tic-tac-toe” grid on a whiteboard. Then, use whiteboard markers or magnets to play the game.

Step 3: Divide the class into two teams. Assign one team to be the “X” team, and one team to be the “O” team.

Step 4: Call a student’s name and show them a flashcard. If they can name the picture or symbol, they earn the right to place an “X” or “O” on the grid for their team. If they don’t know the answer, they lose their turn. Then, give someone from the other team the opportunity to answer.

Step 5: Play continues until a row is completed and the round is complete.

Tip: It is always a good idea to alternate which team gets to go first!

These four, plus five more of our BEST music teaching ideas are included in our completely free Music Lesson Activities ebook. Enter your name and email below and we’ll email it to you right away.

You’ll be joining our mailing list, but there is nothing to worry about by doing so. We will email you valuable ideas for music teaching once or twice a week, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Check details of our privacy policy here.

The Fun Music Company Curriculum includes many more versions these music teaching ideas. Plus it has more of everything you need to build your full music program!

We also offer a risk-free trial which means that you can check out our program today. So why not start by requesting a quote for your program today.

Creating a music lesson plan is difficult enough!
Getting a lesson to fit curriculum requirements is even harder!

Firstly, you need a clear sense of the curriculum requirements. Then you need to turn it into an enjoyable lesson for your students.

Any lesson plan is a simple list of activities. It should also have an idea of where it fits into your program.

It needs to be easy to read, so you can glance at it and be ready to teach. It can also act as a reference to hand on to a substitute teacher.

Personally I like to plan by creating a list of links on my computer. That way every resource I will need will only be one click away!

There are only a few really important things to prepare:

Begin by structuring your lesson content around the four key content areas.

Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.
– Plato

The idea of developing skills appears in every curriculum program. 

The skills worked on in grade one include:

• Keep a steady beat.
• Identifying musical sounds and non-musical sounds.
• Developing an ability to replicate a rhythm.
• Develop an idea of pitch.

In the video below I show you how to work on beat and rhythm skills. We do this with a simple echo rhythm activity.

Regularly repeat warm up activities like this one. This will cover this area of the curriculum.

This video shows you the echo rhythm activity for grade 1.

“A happy child is a child who sings.” – Unknown/Anonymous

Children should be involved in music making in every music lesson. This is where they develop the love and enjoyment for music. They also have fun, and enjoy being a part of their class community.

The Fun Music Company Curriculum program starts with singing. This is a foundation to move quickly into playing instruments.

Not every grade one child will want to sing. Some will sing, some will do actions. Some won’t want to do anything at all at first!

It is up to educators to provide enthusiasm and structure. This will make it safe and accessible for children to participate.

The video below has a strategy to catch the children’s attention:

• How to get them singing.
• How to get them taking part.
• How to get them ready to play instruments.



“Let music belong to everyone.” Zoltan Kodaly

What? Letting grade 1 students COMPOSE THEIR OWN MUSIC?

Actually … YES!

Suppose in an art class we gave a child a paint brush and then said:

“You can paint, but you must only use these colours. You also must exactly replicate this picture!”

This is exactly what we’re doing in music class when we say:

“Here is how to perform three blind mice on the piano”

There is no creativity in this type of lesson. It is replicating what someone else has done before.

In art lessons for Grade 1 we would not do that! We would give them a blank sheet of paper. We might prompt the students with an idea, and then we would let them create. Anything they created we would praise and reward.

So in music we need to re-think our approach. We must encourage children to create their own music, within set frameworks.

Most teachers aren’t trained in the area of composition. Most teachers aren’t composers, however you don’t need to be.

Just follow some simple ideas like this one.

 “How beautiful would it be if our schools and our education program showed how music is a combination of many different cultures, and cultures are an expression of many kinds of music? There’s a lot for our students, not only from a musical perspective, but also from a global perspective and in showing them how they fit in as part of a bigger world.”

– Dr. Miguel Cardona, U.S. Secretary of Education (Source: NAfME interview, July 2021)

Music is a way to expose our children to cultural experiences. This is extremely important.

Children should listen, but not just listen. They should analyse, respond, and express preferences.

The CONNECT part of a music lesson provides a listening experience. It also helps them understand and connect with music and its purpose.

The Australian Curriculum for Grade 1 states that students should:

“Respond to music and consider where and why people make music.”

The US Common Core Arts Standards states that students should:

“Demonstrate and identify how music concepts are used in various styles of music.”

This means we should have students listen to a wide variety of music. This music should be from different cultures and backgrounds. Students should understand its specific purpose, and not just listen to it.

Children at grade one don’t have to write essays. Just begin with a simple listening activity and worksheet.

This all seems like a lot of work, doesn’t it!

That is why we’ve taken the hard yards for you. We have created a complete music curriculum program for grade 1.

This program has everything needed to be successful in teaching grade 1 music. Fun songs, games, creativity lessons and listening activities. All structured in a series of lessons you can prepare in an instant.

Designed for the curriculum, so you can focus on the children. Click here to learn more about it.

Now let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of learning music in grade 3.

You know your grade 3’s are open to learning, but too much can be confusing. Therefore what is the optimal way to help them understand?

The answer is to learn ONE concept at a time!

In this video, you’ll see how we move from something known (clapping)  into an unknown concept (dynamics).

We also do this without too many words and making it like a game!

The video above comes with a free recorded backing track, so you can start putting this into practice. This will make it easy for your students to easily understand the concept and helps them sound GREAT from the start.

Furthermore, having a successful start means they’ll want to do it over and over again. They think they’re playing a fun 5 minute game, but what they’re really learning is important musical and life long skills of sensitive listening!

The Fun Music Company Curriculum Program is the single best resource that we are aware of for someone who wants to save LOTS of out-of-hours prep time and hassle of making these game-like activities yourself from scratch.

Interested? You can get a free trial for 7 days – all we ask is that you let us know how you get on!

It is understanding what we hear and using what we learn to create that forms the remainder of the content.

First, we understand with our CONNECT listening program. This gives a structure and a framework to the music students listen to. In addition it highlights the really important concepts of music and builds the student’s understanding.

Secondly, we create with our COMPOSE program. This gives opportunities for students to create their own music.

Every lesson in the Fun Music Company Curriculum program has either a CONNECT listening lesson, or a COMPOSE activity.

David Reed (author of “Improvise for Real”, “Understand the music you hear. Play the music you imagine”) is quoted as having said:

“How can we have an entire industry dedicated to teaching music, and never get around to actually showing anybody how to create music?”

At the Fun Music Company we’re determined to change that! In our programs we are showing children how to understand music, and create their own.

Most grade 3 children have lots of songs on their iPads or technology at home. However, do they actually listen to music?

It is highly likely that their exposure to music is limited by what their friends and family members are listening to.

Without a structured and guided listening program, children’s exposure to different forms of music will be limited. Also their exposure to different cultures and experiences will be very minimal.

That is why we absolutely MUST include guided listening in music classes.

Grade 3 student attention spans can be short, which means you only have a few seconds to grab their attention.

And that’s why this grade 3 CONNECT lesson idea starts by using a “Who is this? “ quiz:

You can access the CONNECT resource described in that video here.

The CONNECT listening program is about bringing all the music in the children’s wider word, giving it context and meaning, and connecting it with the musical concepts we share in music class.

For students to have a really amazing experience with music, they absolutely must CREATE THEIR OWN.

Suppose we told a child when learning to paint that they ONLY were allowed to trace within the lines, and replicate works of the grand masters of art exactly?

yet … that is what we do with music!

We start with music by asking them to replicate music by other people, before we ever have them create their own.

The simplest way to get going with this is some quick and easy improvistation activities, like are explained in the video below:

Resources for the teaching composition with improvisation idea in the video above are available here.

Hopefully this article has given you some ideas for a framework for a typical 3rd grade music lesson plan. To learn more please check out the complete  Fun Music Company curriculum program for Grade 3, or request a trial of the complete program for K-6 here.

Click here to join the Fun Music Company Mailing List and you’ll receive free and fun ideas for teaching music every week.

Just look at what one of our happy mailing list members said recently:

“This email came exactly when I needed it to  – in a slump and feeling like I’ll never climb the top of the ‘great teacher’ mountain. You are amazing. Thank you for these words and resources.”