Music for Learning – Unit 4
Years F-6
Music for Learning Unit 4 brings music to life through immersive, practical lessons that capture students’ interest from beginning to end. Through visually engaging lessons featuring rich illustrations, animations, audio examples and interactive activities, students develop their understanding of musical concepts while building confidence in performing and creating music. Designed for teachers of all experience levels, the unit makes it easy to deliver engaging music lessons without needing to be a musician.
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Year Overview
Foundation Year – Building Music Together
Unit Overview
Students will build on their understanding of how music can tell stories by learning to build music together. They will explore how a steady beat forms the foundation of music and how simple patterns and different parts can be added to create complete pieces. Through singing, movement and playing percussion, ukulele and glockenspiel, students will practise listening carefully, staying in time and working together to combine their parts to create and perform a range of shared music stories.
Learning Objectives
• Keep a steady beat.
• Play a steady beat on instruments.
• Play long and short sounds over a beat.
• Pluck instruments to make soft and loud sounds over a beat.
• Play different instruments with the group to the beat.
• Learn and practise parts of a song with the beat.
• Play and sing a song together with the group.
• Show what has been learnt and practise the song.
• Perform the song.
Assessment
Exit Tickets
Progress Test
Summative Test
Year 1 and 2 – Music in Celebration
Unit Overview
Music in Celebration unit, students will explore celebrations from around the world through music, movement and performance. They will learn how music can feel happy, calm or reflective through the use of pitch, dynamics and instruments. They will build confidence and teamwork by singing songs and practising a cultural dance as a class. Throughout the unit, students will ‘travel’ around the world to examine a range of celebrations, including birthdays, community events and religious celebrations. They will also practise playing ‘Happy Birthday’ on the glockenspiel, performing it in a group in the last lesson.
Learning Objectives
• Explore how music is used in different celebrations.
• Look at how music helps bring people together during celebrations.
• Explore how different music makes us feel.
• Learn different birthday songs.
• Explore the different feelings music creates in India.
• Learn about oompah bands from Germany.
• Learn how First Australians use music to tell stories.
• Complete the content test and practise for the performance.
Assessment
Exit Tickets
Content Test
Summative Test
Year 3 and 4 – Music in Culture
Unit Overview
Students will explore how music reflects culture, identity and belonging by examining how different cultures use music to express values, traditions, celebrations, important places and community life. They will listen to, sing and play music from cultures including Japan, First Australians, Hawaii, Brazil, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, learning how music can communicate feelings, memories and connections to people and places. Students will then apply their learning by rewriting the lyrics of a known song to reflect their own culture, memories, traditions and important places before rehearsing and performing their songs with others.
Learning Objectives
• Learn how music reflects culture around the world.
• Explore how music can reflect cultural values, traditions and beliefs.
• Explore how music can reflect connection to Country.
• Explore how music can bring communities together.
• Explore how music and rhythm are used in celebrations and festivals.
• Explore how music and movement can express identity, belonging and cultural pride.
• Explore how music can help people stay connected to their culture when they move to new places.
• Start writing songs that reflect their own culture.
• Complete a content test and finish writing songs that reflect their own culture.
• Practise and perform songs that represent their own culture.
Assessment
Exit Tickets
Content test
Summative assessment
Year 5 and 6 – Rock Band
Unit Overview
In the ‘Rock Band’ unit, students will explore the distinctive qualities of rock music through listening, analysis and performance. They will learn how rock music has developed over time, and recognise key features that define the style, including common instruments, rhythm patterns and guitar-based sounds. Through practical activities, students will build their skills in playing chord sequences and simple riffs on guitar, while developing an understanding of how rock music is structured. By the end of the unit, students will perform a rock song on guitar along with a backing track.
Learning Objectives
• Identify the key features of rock music.
• Learn how chords are used to build songs in rock music.
• Learn how riffs and basslines are used in rock music.
• Learn how musicians stay in time together.
• Learn how the same chords can be used in different songs.
• Learn how strumming creates the rhythm of rock music.
• Learn how verse and chorus are used in songs.
• Complete a content test and practise combining different parts in a band.
• Perform as a rock band.
Assessment
Exit Tickets
Progress test
Summative assessment
Other Units
Lesson Design
Lesson Objective
Success Criteria
Activating Prior Knowledge
I Do
We Do
Apple Question
You Do
Revise
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