First Grade Music lessons

Need new ideas for your first grade music lessons? Want detailed ideas, questions, and strategies to try with your students? This comprehensive set now includes 28 first grade music lessons, for the first half of the year. If you purchased previously, make sure to re-download under "my purchases" to receive all 28 lessons and materials!

All lessons include objectives, materials, all National Core arts standards covered, skills covered, relationship to previous and future lessons, "I can" statements, comfortable starting pitch, time allotted for each activity, procedures, assessments, and transitions. A spot on each lesson is included for an evaluation of the lesson, so you can list any notes about the lesson or about what each class covered. I'm also including essential questions and rubrics as appropriate.

This set is meant to assist you in lesson planning your first grade lessons. Each student population, each school, and each teacher is different, so I made these lesson plans editable (as Word files) so you could adapt as needed. Simply type into the already existing lesson, or cut and paste into your own template. These lessons are written for 35 minutes, so if you have less, you could delete activities, and if you have more, you could add using some of the suggestions in the “suggestions for addition” file (which will grow as the set grows). Please feel free to add activities of your own! This should be a living, breathing set that changes from year to year, adapting to your students, your needs, and your school’s needs.

These lessons were added on these dates:
Initial upload: Lessons 1-4
8/22/14: Lessons 5-6
8/30/14: Lessons 7-8
9/5/14: Lessons 9-10
9/11/14: Lessons 11-12
9/20/14: Lessons 13-14
9/27/14: Lessons 15-16
10/5/14: Lessons 17-18
10/12/14: Lessons 19-20
10/18/14: Lessons 21-22
10/26/14: Lessons 23-24
11/2/14: Lessons 25-26
11/9/14: Lessons 27-28

I also uploaded any new songs and chants to the file as they occurred throughout the lessons; they are alphabetically listed in the songs file. Materials will also be added. Please note that while many lesson materials are included in this set, some of the materials are listed as links to products in my store, the stores of others, or on other sites online (such as West Music.)

Please note that the first lesson of this series is very similar to the first grade lesson in Fabulous First Day, as this is the first lesson of the first grade year. The present long and short-short lesson is similar to one you may already own, which is in More Songs and Activities to Teach Ta and Ti-Ti.. The other lesson which will be similar to one you may already own is the presentation lesson for ta and ti-ti, which is also found in More Songs and Activities to Teach Ta and Ti-Ti.

The set also includes:
*A checklist for National Core Arts Standards (this is the same design in my Music Teacher Planner, but only includes first grade)
*Lesson plan template (editable Word file)
*PDF's of all of the lessons
*Editable and PDF outline of lessons: I will keep revising this as I add the lesson. I included an editable file so you could delete what you don't use and add what you do. This file is much like a simplified year plan.
*Tips for writing lessons in Word (includes info about how to check boxes on the lesson plan template)

This set could also be adapted for second grade, if your second graders are practicing these concepts. For these lessons, it is assumed that students know the following concepts: beat, rhythm, fast/slow, loud/quiet, and high/low. During the course of this particular set, students will learn quarter notes and eighth notes (sometimes called ta and ti-ti) and will prepare sol and mi. Students will also work on several skills, such as listening, inner hearing, improvisation, and more!