This unit gives students a broad range of songs that familiarize them with different cultures, lifestyles, and periods of history.

Using whisper songs from Burundi, Mbira melodies from Zimbabwe, and Pygmy music from the central rainforest students will employ combinations of singing, improvisation, and composition to experiment with styles of music and performance.

This six- lesson unit is designed to expose the learner to spirituals and to encourage their
understanding of the importance of spirituals to the African American community during slave
times and the Civil Rights Movement.

This unit traces jazz from its African roots and influence through to the years of George Gershwin. Students will learn to identify key jazz features such as improvisation, syncopation, soloists and solos. Music listened to and critiqued includes African music, spirituals, gospel, ragtime, blues, swing, bebop, and early jazz. Students will write and perform original blues lyrics, and share musical critiques and biographies.

Through the help of Adalbert the alligator, the muppets, and even Beethoven, 2nd graders will delight in the science, geography, visual art, language arts, and musical connections gathered in with Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Students will write stories, use maps, and create artwork while using music as their launching pad for learning.

In this series of lessons students will become familiar with the composer Antonin Dvorak
and his Ninth Symphony From The New World. Students will learn about the
significance of Dvorak in America during the 1890s and will use creative skills to
compose melodies based on familiar folk tunes, increasing understanding of nationalism
in music.

Through learning about The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, students will gain an understanding of form in music, the timbre of the string instruments of the orchestra, and the use of instruments in orchestration. Students will also appreciate the significance of Vivaldi as a composer of the late Baroque Era.

Astronomy, mythology, and music collide in this science fiction ride through the 3rd grade. Gustav Holst’s, The Planets Suite, written over 90 years ago, remains today the benchmark for space music. Third gradeclasses will enjoy the mystery of Holst’s music while maintaining graphs, studying myths, discovering planets, drawing pictures, storytelling, and making music.

Sixth grade music students will learn about listening strategies, as well as the culture, music and two prominent composers of the Baroque period, namely J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel. They will demonstrate their understanding of the content through several assessments.

In this Music Elements unit, students are introduced to the characteristics of three main forms of music elements: Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm. The students will listen to, analyze, and compose music.

This unit focuses on music from the Classical period by teaching students about Mozart and his
music. Students will learn to read and identify notes and rhythms, expand their musical vocabulary and perform on a recorder.

Students learn to distinguish rhythm, melody, harmony, form and timbre and will gain an appreciation for the way musical elements paint a picture, evoke feeling, and set a mood.

Students will create basic spoken sequences and progresses through the creation of a twelve-measure song based on a major scale. By learning to create simple sequences of sound, students begin to understand the basic elements in musical composition.

Art music in Europe is widely known for its mathematical structure and theoretic brilliance. What is often left unnoticed is the indigenous side of musical Europe. Rhythmic flamenco, intense Sardinian harmony, hilltops ringing with alphorns, and the wild yodel at the end of a phrase are all indigenous sounds of European music. By exploring these musical elements from Sardinia, Austria, Spain and Switzerland, students will become familiar with indigenous instruments, musical forms and styles.

This unit is designed to give students an in-depth look at the four basic instruments of the brass family: trumpet, french horn, trombone and tuba. Learning to recognize the sight and sound of each instrument is emphasized.

This unit takes students through an exciting exploration of the expressive qualities of music. Step by step the students will grow in their understanding as they listen and explore creative movement, and finally create music of their own.

This unit will help students recognize, visually and aurally, the instruments of the orchestra and the electronic age. The students will become actively involved with the instruments through movement, listening and singing.

Students will learn about the Baroque and Classical Eras through a study of the arts. They will learn elements of music by exploring the careers and musical examples of Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mozart. Studying these two eras together provides students the opportunity to understand the world past and present, and to learn to appreciate the development of their own cultural heritage.

This unit focuses on music from the Baroque period by teaching students about J.S. Bach and his
music. Advancing the student’s musical knowledge and ability will be a key
component of this unit, which will culminate with a recorder performance.

In this first grade music unit, students are introduced to opera using Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel. Students will sing, dance and act, to experience for themselves that opera is a combination of all these art forms.