Reviewing a variety of any teacher's lesson plans can be as interesting or as boring as reviewing old photo albums. On the one hand, it can be interesting to see how another might create lessons for a particular age or context, or through successive weeks, or with the same students through successive years. On the other hand, the reader doesn’t know the teacher’s shorthand; so many questions are left unanswered. Still, reviewing a series of lesson plans for a variety of different ages and developmental levels offers a unique perspective for workshop participants. Perhaps the lesson plans will generate new ideas, new awareness, and new questions to be researched in your own classroom.
Lesson plans are not carved in stone. They are simply an account of an ongoing narrative of music teaching and learning, no matter how cryptic. The lesson plans do not indicate which activities were included—even over an extended period of time—simply to explore some dimension of music learning. Nor do they reveal that numeric titles are missing from so many because those materials evolved from improvisation in classroom research. [Rhythm and Tonal Materials.] The lesson plans also do not suggest which songs were included because they had just been written for the children, with the first “hearing” with children’s voices in that class. [SONG LIBRARY.]
The many lesson plans are drawn from a broad range of ages, developmental levels and contexts. Some present four weeks of a sixteen week semester. Some are for successive years with the same group of children, and some are for beginning groups. Some are for young children more musically developed than the scope of this workshop, including many with children from two years old on up comfortably engaged in rhythm and tonal syllables and music reading. A number of the lesson plans were written for sight-unseen groups of children in other countries, with the lessons (and now lesson plans) serving as demonstrations for teachers. These lesson plans are simply examples that might help you create your own, with your own shorthand and your own improvisation—whether in rhythm and tonal activities or in teaching technique! Lesson Plans
