2

nd
Grade

Overall Unit Objectives:
-Students will be able to distinguish between different sections of a song and label them with letters,
demonstrating an understanding of form.
-Students will be able to read and perform the rhythm ti-ta-ti using standard notation.

Prior Learning:
Students already understand pitch (going higher and lower), rhythm (the way the words go), beat (the
steady heartbeat of the music), tempo (how fast or slow the beat is), and timbre (different instruments have
different sounds). They will be using this knowledge to understand how composers create sections in
their music.

Lesson One

Concept: Composers create different sections in their music in many ways. One of these ways is by
altering text and mood.

Standard: S3:C1:PO3: Recognizing AB and ABA forms

Objective: The students will be able to understand musical form by distinguishing between sections of a
song using text, labeling them with letters, and identifying the form of the song.

Skills: singing melodies with syncopation, doing body percussion with syncopation, moving to a steady
beat, understanding emotion, showing emotion, creating movements to fit text/emotions, using labels
(iconic and symbolic)

Materials: Shoo, Fly music and CD recording (from Silver-Burdett)

Process:
1. The teacher will meet students outside the door and ask them to come in and find a place to stand on
the circle of tape.
2. The teacher will ask students to echo some body percussion in 4/4 time with quarter notes, eighth
notes, and some syncopated (ti-ta-ti) rhythms that have not been presented to the class yet.
3. The teacher will ask students to have a seat in the circle. Teacher will ask the question How are you
feeling today? Class will think-pair-share. As they share aloud, the teacher will ask students to
demonstrate the emotion that student has shared. The teacher will tell students that we are going to play
a guessing game. The teacher will show a facial expression and say a word that goes with it, and the
students will guess what emotion the teacher is showing. Example: The teacher might smile and say
Yay! for the emotion excited. Students will think-pair-share about each example. Students will then
find a partner, stand in two concentric circles, and make a facial expression/sound for their partner to
guess. Each partner will take a turn guessing. The inside circle will move one person to the right a
couple of times so that each person gets to talk to several different partners. The teacher might ask a few
students to copy their partners expression for the class.
4. The teacher will ask students to go back to their place on the circle and have a seat. Students will
listen to the teacher sing section A of Shoo, Fly a few times, answer several focus questions, and add in
movements each repitition. Students will think-pair-share quickly about each of the focus questions.
FQ: What animal do you hear in this song?
FQ: How many times do we say the word fly?
FQ: What does the person singing the song say to the fly? Teacher will ask class to demonstrate
what it look like when you shoo a fly. Students will do this movement on the words, Shoo, Fly.
FQ: What emotion do you think the person singing this song is feeling when they sing this song?
Teacher will ask class to demonstrate what this emotion looks like. Students will do this
movement/expression on I belong to somebody.
FQ: Look for the new movement (two partner claps on bother and me). Add all movements
and invite students to join singing if they have not already.
5. The teacher will tell students that theres another part of this song. Students will listen to section B,
respond to focus questions, and add movements.
FQ: What does the person singing this song feel like? What does it mean to feel like a morning
star? Students will show teacher what it looks like if youre feeling this emotion.
FQ: This person likes to say I feel. How many times does this person say it?
FQ: What movement do I do, and what words do I do it on? Teacher will add two partner claps on
the word star.
Students will add clap.
Students will find a partner and come up with their own movements that show the emotion for I
feel.
Teacher will ask students to review all the movements quickly by asking what they do on certain
parts of the song. Teacher will tell students that after they sing the morning star part, they will sing the
Shoo, Fly part once more to end the song. Students will stand with their partner in two concentric
circles, sing, and do the movements for section A and then section B. Maybe repeat one more time with a
new partner if the class needs more practice singing and doing the movements.
6. Students will sit down where they are with their partners and talk about what emotions the person
singing this song felt. Some students will share aloud. The teacher will show students powerpoint on
smartboard that has pictures of a mad person and then a happy person and ask students if that was the
order we sang the song in. The teacher will tell students that we can talk about the song as having a mad
section and a happy section. The teacher will then ask students to tell their partners what we were talking
about in the mad part of the song and the happy part of the song. Students answers will vary, but they
will probably come up with something like Shoo, Fly dont bother me and I feel like a morning star.
Teacher will show picture of a fly and a star underneath the mad and happy pictures. Teacher will ask
students if this could also represent the way we sang the song. Teacher will tell students that we are going
to make it a little more complicated and give them letters instead of pictures. The teacher will show the
first letter underneath the mad and fly pictures, which is A. The teacher will ask students to answer as a
class, What letter do you think is behind the second picture? Students will probably answer with A, B,
and maybe various other letters. The teacher will ask students to vote by raising their hands and then
think-pair-share about why they think their answer is correct. A student or two who thinks each answer
will share their arguments with the class. The teacher will reveal that the answer is B, asking a student
to tell why it is B and why it couldnt be another letter.
7. The teacher will tell students that we are going to sing the song in a different order. The teacher will
show another slide of the powerpoint with four blanks and ask student volunteers to drag a mad or happy
picture to each blank. Another student volunteer will draw the fly and star pictures to where they
coorespond with the mad and happy pictures. The teacher will briefly introduce the word form, telling
the students that we are now going to sing the song in this order, in this form. Students will find a new
partner, sing, and do the movements in the new order.
8. Students will think-pair-share about what letters would replace each of the pictures. Students will call
them out as a class. The teacher will ask think-pair-share questions, like Why would it not be section C
here? etc. to make sure all of the students understand how to do this. The teacher will tell students that
this is the form of the song and then say the letters that coorespond to the pictures, such as The form
of this song is ABBA. The teacher will then go back to the previous slide and ask students what the form
of the first song they sang was. The teacher will then ask students how we figured out where the different
sections were. Students will think-pair-share about this question. They will hopefully answer with things
like The words are different or the character feels different. It is not important that they know that
there are differences in other elements of the music yet, as we will be exploring this throughout the unit.
If a student brings this up, however, the teacher should acknowledge that they are correct and maybe
remind students of the comment the student made in the following lesson when they will be exploring
this.
9. Students will practice a couple more times on their own, labeling the fly and star pictures with a
partner. The teacher will walk around to help students who are having trouble. Differentiation: Students
who are able to do this quickly and easily will be given the words and iconic notation for Rags, a song
they have previously learned, and they will be asked to distinguish the form and tell how they figured it
out. This song has a different text on the A and B section, so students will be able to use this as a tool to
figure it out.
10. If extra time:
-Students will look at Rags, a song they learned previously, as a class and determine where the sections
are using the text and determine what the form of the song is.
-Students will be given two different types of unpitched percussion instruments. They will be assigned to
play one instrument to a steady beat on section A and the other instrument to a steady beat on section B
of Shoo, Fly.
-Students will practice clapping and saying some rhythms that they have learned. As a class, the group
will create AB and ABA rhythms (only one measure for each section). This will briefly introduce the
concept for the next lesson, that other elements of music are different for each section, also.

Assessment: Students will have fly, star, A, and B card. Individually, they will listen to the teacher sing
the song and put a fly or star card down each time they hear each section. They will then place an A or B
card that cooresponds to the picture card down. They will have a slip of paper that says, The form of this
song is _______________ where they will write their final letter names down. The teacher will walk
around to check student answers, collect papers, and record for a grade. Students will receive one point
for labeling the song correctly with pictures, one point for labeling the song correctly with letters, and one
point for writing the form of the song correctly on the paper.
Lesson Two

Concept: Composers create different sections in their music in many ways. Some of these ways are
altering text, tempo, melodic contour, and rhythmic patterns.

Standard:
-S3:C1:PO3: Recognizing AB and ABA forms
-S3:C1:PO4: Responding to various moods heard in music through facial expression, body posture,
and/or movement.
-S1:C2:PO3: Playing with correct rhythmic duration quarter notes, eighth notes, and quarter rests

Objective:
-The students will be able to respond to various moods heard in music through movement and will be
able to recognize the form of this music using the movements they have created.
-The students will be able to understand musical form by distinguishing between sections of a song using
text, tempo, melodic contour, and rhythmic patterns, by labeling the sections with letters, and by
identifying the form of the song.
-The students will be able to read and understand the rhythm ti-ta-ti by discovering this pattern in
iconic notation, creating how this rhythm looks with their bodies, and by clapping and saying rhythm
patterns with ti-ta-ti.

Skills: Singing, Moving, Keeping a Steady Beat, Discussing music using musical vocabulary, Clapping and
Saying Rhythms, Listening

Materials: Powerpoint, Ribbon Sticks, Song Little Fish,

Process:
1. The teacher will remind students of the Shoo, Fly song they sang during their last class. Students
will drag pictures of the fly and morning star to three blanks on the smartboard to create the form.
Students will then label these sections with A and B. Students will sing and move to the song in this
form.
2. Teacher will ask students to close their eyes and pretend that they are a fish. Teacher will ask students
to think about how they would swim through the water and play some music to help them imagine it.
Teacher will ask students to stand up and move around to the music like they are a fish swimming
gracefully through the water. Teacher will play music that supports this story on the piano. Teacher will
praise students on their graceful, flowing movements that fit the music. The teacher will ask students to
sit down and close their eyes one more time. The teacher will tell students that they see a shark in the
distance. They dont want to move really fast because then the shark will see them, so theyre trying to
sneak around. The teacher will play music that supports the story on the piano. Teacher will return to
the calm music and tell students that the shark is gone, so they are just swimming along calmly now.
3. Students will have a seat on the floor. Teacher will ask students how their fish was feeling in the
different parts of the story. Students will share aloud. Students will find a partner and think-pair-share
about the order we sang the song in. Teacher will tell students that they can use the words happy and
scared (or whatever words the class came up with) to describe the sections of the music. Students will
share aloud. If students are having trouble, the teacher might ask students to retell what happened in the
story and play the music once again to accompany their retelling to help them remember the order.
4. The teacher will show students the fish and shark pictures in the powerpoint. The teacher will ask the
students to share as a class what letters could replace the pictures, revealing each one as they tell it.
5. The teacher will tell students that we are going to perform our song again, saying Our fish is going to
be swimming along happily, and then its going to get scared because it sees the shark. Then its going to
think the shark left and be happy again, but then it sees the shark again and gets scared. Teacher will ask
students if they can perform the song in this order, but will then say, It might be easier if I gave you some
pictures or some letters to help you remember what order the story goes in. This will help students
understand that identifying the form and labeling the sections is a tool to help you understand and
perform music. Teacher will tell story again, asking which picture should go with each part. Teacher will
show next slide on powerpoint that has these pictures. Students will move around the room like a fish to
perform the new story. Teacher will then ask students what letters go behind the pictures and what form
it is.
6. The teacher will ask students to sit in the floor on a clump. The teacher will sing the song The Little
Fish. Students will respond to focus questions and add movement.
FQ: What animals do you hear in this song? Students will definitely hear fish, but the teacher
might need to sing it again to help them hear the blackbird.
FQ: What are the fish doing?
FQ: What is the blackbird doing?
Teacher will ask students to tap beat on their lap and listen for the nonsense word, or the word
thats not a real word. Teacher will give some example of nonsense words.
FQ: Teacher will ask students to continue tapping beat and figure out what happens to the beat on
the nonsense word part. (This section is a faster tempo.)
Teacher will invite students to sing if they have not started already and sing once more. Students
will continue keeping beat to help them notice that the second section is faster.
7. Teacher will show students ribbon sticks or scarves and demonstrating how we will use them. We will
wave them in a figure 8 pattern on the slow section with the real words, and we will skip/gallop/walk (not
run) around the room during the faster section with the nonsense words. Teacher will pass out ribbon
sticks and let students have some time to explore them before starting the song. Students will then sing
and move to the music.
8. Students will return their ribbon sticks and sit in a clump on the floor. Teacher will show melodic
icon cards (in powerpoint) to students and sing the first phrase for the students, pointing to the dots.
Students will sing and point to dots.
9. Teacher will ask students if they see any patterns in the first card. Students will might notice that
there is a short-long-short dot pattern. If the students are having trouble, teacher might show students
the short-long-short dots and the beginning and ask if they see the same one anywhere else. Teacher will
ask if they look exactly the same or different. Students might point out that one is higher and one is
lower. Students will sing the first slide one more time, noticing how these patterns sounded. Teacher
will ask questions about how they sound, asking if the rhythm was the same and if the pitches were the
same. Teacher will help students draw connections between the way the melody looks and how it sounds.
Teacher will tell students that were going to call this a rhythm pattern, because we have the same rhythm
twice.
10. Teacher will show students next slides and ask if we have the same rhythm pattern. Students will
come up to smartboard and point to the rhythm pattern. Students will always sing the card, too, to hear
what the pattern sounds like. On section B, teacher will continue to ask students if they see the rhythm
pattern. They might think they see it in this slide. Teacher will ask students to sing it and think about if it
sounds the same. They will hopefully notice that it is different. Teacher might sing the rhythm pattern
and then this part of the slide to help students hear difference. Teacher will point out that there is space
after the long note, and there is not space in the last slides.
11. Teacher will show students the slide with the entire melody notated with icons. The A Section and
B Section are animated, so they will not appear yet. Teacher will ask students to think-pair-share about
how they could group the slides into two groups, two sections. As students share their guesses, the
teacher will ask questions to help them explain how they came up with these groupings. The teacher will
try to help students come up with the fact that the melodic contour is different (students can just call this
the melody) and that the rhythm is different (short-long-short rhythm pattern is not in the second part of
the song.)
12. Teacher will ask students how we could label this with letters. Students will think-pair-share, and
teacher will reveal the labels for the sections. Teacher will review what the students have discovered.
The words are different in each section because section A has real words, and section B has nonsense
words. The tempo is different because section A goes slower than section B. The melody is different
because section A just moves up and down a little bit and section B goes really high and really low. The
rhythm is different because section A has the short-long-short rhythm and section B doesnt.
13. Teacher will ask students if we could change the song to be able to sing it in ABA form. Students will
think-pair-shar about what changes we would have to make to do this. Teacher will ask students what we
will have to do to the tempo when we sing section A the second time. Students will sing and use their
ribbon sticks one more time.
14. Students will play a game to review ta and ti-ti rhythms by making rhythms with their bodies and then
clapping and saying them. For this game, students make a line horizontally across classroom so that they
can all see the smartboard. Teacher tells the students how many people they will need to create the
rhythm (measure). This number of people will stand in the middle of the room. Some of the people will
be a ta by holding their arms out to the side to make themselves longer, and some people will be one
part of the ti-ti standing with their arms by their side next to another person. The teacher will show
students the rhythm and they will make it with their bodies. The class will then clap and say the rhythm.
The game will repeat until each student has had a few turns.
15. Students will go back to sitting in a clump on the floor. The teacher will present the rhythm ti-ta-ti by
showing the students the iconic notation for this, asking them to say it using the words of the song, and
then replacing it with standard notation. Teacher will give students the label ti-ta-ti, explaining that it is a
ti-ti with a ta standing right in the middle. Insteady of short-short-long, we have short-long-short.
16. Students will play rhythm game once again (step 14), creating rhythms with ti-ta-ti in them.

Assessment: There is no formal assessment in this lesson. The teacher will informally assess by
observation if the students are able to clap and say the new rhythms to see how this concept will be
reviewed/retaught during the next class. The teacher will also informally observe the students as they
move to their music in the beginning of the lesson. The teacher will informally assess the students
abilities to determind the two sections in the music and the reasons for these sections.
Lesson Three

Concept: Composers create different sections in their music in many ways. Some of these ways are
altering text, tempo, melodic contour, rhythmic patterns, and timbre.

Standard:
-2
nd
Grade S3:C1:PO3: Recognizing AB and ABA forms
-4
th
Grade S3:C1:PO3: Describing canon and rondo forms (we will only be describing rondo form in this
lesson)

Objective:
-The students will be able to understand musical form by distinguishing between sections of a song using
text, tempo, melodic contour, and rhythmic patterns, by labeling the sections with letters, by identifying
the form of the song, and by composing a song in ABA form. (It is not important that they really
understand rondo form, just that they are able to identify different sections of music and label them
with letters.)
-The students will be able to read and understand the rhythm ti-ta-ti by using it in a rhythmic
composition and performing it correctly.

Skills: Singing, Moving, Keeping a Steady Beat, Discussing music using musical vocabulary, Clapping and
Saying Rhythms, Listening

Materials: Fossils recording, Zoo Poem (I got this from a lesson Dr. Stauffer taught, not sure where its
from originally), xylophones of any size and claves

Process:
1. If teacher determined during the last lesson that students were struggling with clapping and saying ti-
ta-ti rhythms, the teacher will present these again before playing the game. If students werent having any
trouble, the class just play the game for practice and review. Students will play their rhythm game from
the last class using ti-ta-ti rhythms in 4/4 time (only about 5 minutes).
2. Students will vote as a class on singing Shoo, Fly or Little Fish and doing the movements/ribbon
sticks to review. Students will think-pair-share about the form of the song and give reasons to support
their answers using a words bank on the powerpoint.
3. Students will sit in a clump on the floor. Teacher will ask class to listen to recorded music (Fossils
from Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens) and follow teachers movements. Teacher will keep a steady
beat on stopping on different points on the body.
4. Teacher will tell students that we are going to learn a poem that goes along with this music. Students
will listen to poem and respond with focus questions and movements.
Zoo Poem:
Going to the zoo, going to the zoo,
Going to the zoo just to see the monkeys,
Going to the zoo, going to the zoo,
Going to the zoo, just to see my friends
FQ: Where are we going?
FQ: What will we see there?
FQ: How many times do we say zoo?
Clap every time we say zoo.
Look for new movement (Pat legs one hand at time one Go-ing to the
Invite students to join saying the poem.
Look for new movement (Two partner claps on See the mon-keys)
5. Students will find a partner and say poem while doing the movements. They will try it two more times,
a little faster each time until they have reached the tempo of the recording.
6. Teacher will play recording for students and ask them to watch how the movements look with the
music. Teacher will tell students that there might be a section of the music that the words dont fit with.
Students should watch teacher for what to do on these sections. Students will do the movements with
their partners. (They will sway on section B and twiddle thumbs on section C.)
7. Teacher will give student labels for each of the movements they did, telling them that well call the
partner part Clap, the swaying part Sway, and the twiddling thumbs part Thumbs. Students will
think-pair-share with their partner about what order we did the movements in. As students share aloud,
if they mostly get it right, teacher will reveal pictures on powerpoint. If they are struggling, do the
movements with the recording one more time, asking them to listen for this.
8. Teacher will ask students what letters would go behind each of the pictures and then what the form is.
Students will think-pair-share. Teacher will play one music one more time, pausing after each section to
ask students what instrument is playing (they will have a bank to choose from and will already have been
introduced to the sounds of these instruments). Teacher will point out that this composer uses different
instruments, or different timbres to create different sections in the music.
9. Students will return to a clump on the floor. Teacher will tell them that the composer of this music
called it Fossils and show some pictures of fossils, explaining what they are. The teacher will ask
students to think-pair-share about what it was about the music that made it sound like fossils. The
students may or may not be able to answer this, but the teacher will accept all of their answers since this is
a personal question and there are no right or wrong answers to this questions. Teacher will explain that
the composer of this music used percussion instruments like the xylophone because he thought that it
sounded like bones tapping together. The teacher will play the xylophone so that they hear how this
sounds like this. The teacher will show students various unpitched percussion instruments (claves,
cymbals, drums) and ask which one might sound like bones tapping together. Teacher will play each one,
and class will vote.
10. Teacher will tell students that we are going to compose a song in AB form. The A section will be
played by the xylophone and the B section will be played by the claves. Teacher will demonstrate
composing using the composition sheet on each instrument. The xylophones will write in a note name for
the words of the Zoo Poem. The claves will come up with a 16-beat rhythm using ta, ti-ti, quarter rest,
and at least one ti-ta-ti. (This gives the students a very narrow window for creativity. If the teacher
thought the class could handle this activity with less direction, he/she could make this process a little
freer.) Teacher will put students into homogenous academic level groups of 2-3. Advanced students will
compose the xylophone part. Lower students will compose the claves part. Students who finish early will
compose both parts.
11. The composition activity may continue into the next class. Students will pair with another group to
perform their compositions in AB form during the next class period.

Assessment: Teacher will informally assess the students ability to clap and say ti-ta-ti rhythms in the
opening rhythm game. The teacher may choose to take a grade on this or wait until a later class period to
give the students more practice. At the end of this lesson, teacher will assess students composition and
performance. Section A will be assessed on whether they can play their notes with the correct rhythm.
Section B will be assessed on whether they used the assigned rhythms and performed them correctly.

Unit Assessment: At the end of this unit, the teacher will sing the Little Fish song in a different form
(maybe ABABA) and students will write down the form on a piece of paper for a final assessment.