Ready to Use Lesson Plans Involving Music

January 11, 2017

By Shannon McClintock Miller

As the new year starts, kick it off by adding new energy and excitement to your classroom! One way to do this is through music. As Chris Boyd Brewer states in Music and Learning: Integrating Music in the Classroom, “Music will activate students mentally, physically, and emotionally and create learning states which enhance understanding of learning material.”

The stories, songs, and ready-to-use lesson plans from Cantata Learning will add just what you need to bring your classroom to life with music, while helping your students retain and recall information in a different way.  

How They Work

Let’s take a closer look at the lesson plans Cantata Learning has created to accompany the engaging stories, playful illustrations, and fun songs found in each book. The lesson plans tie into the core curricular areas including language arts, reading, math, science, and social studies, just as the books and songs covers all these areas in addition to social emotional, library and digital citizenship skills, STEAM, and more.  

From cross-curricular or project based learning units to collaborative projects between various subjects and related arts areas, the lesson plans bring everything together with clear objectives, easy to follow instructions, key vocabulary, a materials list, and even the free Cantata Learning song or songs needed for the lesson.

Even More Enrichment

We also know that music influences a creative, interactive, and energized classroom environment. Therefore, we want to take time to enrich each lesson plan by adding art, technology, physical education, cooking, and other extensions.  

For example, after learning about a new scientific concept in a Cantata Learning book, such as habitats, students might be asked to create a new creature that might thrive in a particular habitat.  From there, they may undertake art projects representing their creations or collaborate to create a digital presentation.

Get Your Resources

For specific ideas related to Cantata Learning’s new series Animal World, download your free lesson plan here: Animal World-Songs About Animal Adaptations.

And don’t forget, you can also stream or download each of the songs for free!
Animal Feet
Animal Heads
Animal Tails
Animal Wings

With the books, songs, and lesson plans enchanting learners from preschool to third grade and older, there so many ways to use Cantata Learning. As you can see, these books are the perfect way to fill your classroom with the sparks you need to make this year truly shine for your students. 

And finally, if you have a lesson using a Cantata Learning book and/or song that you’d like to share with the community, send it our way! We’d love to share it on our website. 

References:  

Brewer, C. B.. Integrating Music in the Classroom. Johns Hopkins University School of Education Music and Learning.  Retrieved from http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Arts%20in%20Education/brewer.htm

Animal World: Songs About Animal Adaptations