Students will explore facial expressions, connect emotions to colors, and use those colors to indicate the expressive qualities of music. Students will create a colored mosaic based on listening examples.

Students will explore copyright and intellectual property standards as they relate to music, music technology, and digital citizenship. Students will explore copyright law, investigate the trends of copyright throughout history, and collaborate to propose their own “Copyright Act” for the future.

This lesson guides students through the beginning stages of articulation. Focus is limited to producing clear, focused tone, and clean legato articulation.

Students will explore the blues by listening and describing a blues piece, learning about the history of the blues, analyzing form, and collaborating to write lyrics utilizing blues lyric form.

This plan guides teachers in exercising audiation techniques to develop aural skills for young musicians. These skills can be continually developed in warm-ups and literature in call-and-response style instruction.

The purpose of this document is to highlight standard nine of the 2020 Music Standards of Learning for instrumental music. This standard in all grade levels relates connecting music content, skills, and processes to career options, college opportunities, and the 21st Century workplace. Teachers and curriculum specialists can use this document to plan a sequence of instruction that prepares students for career, college, and workplace connections in music education.

Students will create original instruments similar to the homespun instruments of Appalachian old-time and bluegrass music. Students will investigate both traditional and Appalachian instruments to understand how instruments make sound, and what is needed to create sound (strings, bridge, tuning capabilities, bow, body, and neck). Students will used recycled or found parts to create their own bluegrass instrument.

Students will explore Virginia’s musical heritage through discovery of the venues and cultural centers promoting traditional Appalachian, old-time, and Bluegrass music. After researching and exploring the resources along the Virginia’s Crooked Road, students will create a multi-media presentation describing one or more of the venues along the 333-mile Heritage Music trail including people that visited the area, musical styles, groups that performed, and the function of music in the cultural area. Students will create QR codes applied to an interactive map of The Crooked Road describing the over 50 venues that promote the milestones of Appalachian, old time, bluegrass, and country music. 

See computer science integration opportunities in K-5 music in this crosswalk of the two disciplines.

This resource is intended to be used by educators, school, and division leadership to evaluate instructional materials for quality. When lesson plans, unit plans, and other instructional activities are from outside sources, division staff and educators may use and adapt these key features to evaluate the materials. In addition, these key features can be used as a guide for locally developed instructional materials that support the curriculum. 

Computer Science Standard Alignment Guides are resources for teachers working to integrate computer science into their core curriculum. These guides explain the standard, give a sample activity or lesson that teaches the standard, and ways to measure student proficiency on the skill or concept.

Create Rhyming is a cross-curricular lesson designed by an Elementary Music Teacher to support Math instruction. Created By: Gina Dickerson Powhatan County Public Schools

Let’s learn about the different building blocks of music: beat, rhythm, harmony, and melody. Using these building blocks, we can be brave musicians and make our very own musical sound. Join us while we experiment with the elements of music and then watch as our special guest, Ms. Foster, shows us how to build shoebox houses with everyday items we find around the house.

Learn to sing a song that reminds us of a big spinning wheel. We will also meet a new instrument that makes its sound by spinning - a hurdy-gurdy! Then watch as our special guest, Ms. Thomas, shows us how to make our very own spinning toy - a whirligig! Come spin with us!

Learn about the five senses. Mary and Mike are out and about, using their five senses to explore a city park. Mary collects leaves and watches the squirrels busily gathering acorns, while Mike eats snacks from his bag. Back in the studio, they find new ways to make music and even try some improvisation. Special guest, Ms. McCollough, shows us how to make our very own fizzy volcanoes. How will you be brave and curious today?

Students create arrangements of a melody and listen to recordings contrasting in style and genre.

Students brainstorm strategies to guide their listening as they describe and label music of different genres.

In this session, VDOE Reading Specialist Carmen Kurek shares how to effectively implement and connect to literacy strategies in the elementary resource classroom. 

After viewing the video “Anatomy of a Jam Session” from Virginia Roots: A Journey into Appalachian Music, Blue Ridge PBS, students will collaborate to create a performance of a two or three chord old-time song with available classroom instruments in the style of a jam session.