Curriculum Maps for Elementary General Music

“What will I teach this year?”

“What grade does this song work for?”

“What do I do after this unit?”

These are questions we all ask in our teaching, and we can start to explore their answers with a curriculum outline, or curriculum map.

A curriculum outline is one document that can make our planning time both manageable and meaningful.

Today we’ll:

  • Look at a curriculum outline example

  • Talk about how it’s constructed

  • Look at other possible sequences

  • Think about what’s missing in the document

Let’s jump in!

 
 

Curriculum Outline

Here is an example of the curriculum outline from The Planning Binder 2023 - 2024 school year.

This is a broad look at an entire elementary music program, at each grade level.

This document is organized by musical concepts. The emphasis is on foundational musical elements that can be transferred to many different musical skills and many different areas of musical understanding.

Two important items to consider in the interpretation of this document have to do with the role of discipline-concepts, and the distinction between experiences and conscious learning.

Organized By Discipline-Specific Concepts

As we organize our curricula by concepts, we help students build understanding and transfer it to new musical situations, both inside and outside the classroom.

For example, if we teach students to understand pitch - melodic contour, intervallic relationships, etc. - and we give students tools to listen critically, to analyze what they hear, and to articulate their thinking, they have what they need to transfer their understanding to many different musical scenarios.

They are equipped to play a melody by ear on guitar or harmonica or metallophone. They might choose to compose their own melody and teach it to a friend or arrange it for an ensemble.

In the construction of this curriculum outline, there is a choice to lean toward transferrable musical patterns and ideas, and lean away from siloed musical units.

Experiences and Conscious Vocabulary

Another thing I think is important to note about this document is that these are times the musical ideas are highlighted and students are aligned on musical vocabulary.

These are not the only times the musical events are experienced.

For example, we can sing songs in many different modes (like these entrance songs) even if students do not consciously know the mode’s label and how to aurally identify it or write it on the five-line staff.

 
 
 
 

Teaching Sequences for elementary music

In our conversations about what we’re going to teach in the next lesson, the “why” behind a musical sequence can sometimes be overlooked.

Even though it’s easy for all of us to get caught up in our efforts to make music with students as quickly and efficiently as possible, thinking through the purpose of a teaching sequence can be helpful as we make decisions about our own situations.

Known to the Unknown

One of the core principles we use in a spiraled curriculum is the idea of moving from the known to the unknown.

This came out of the work and followers of Pestalozzi. Educators who use this principle believe that learning does not take place in a vacuum. When students learn something new, it is because they have connected it to previously-known material.

Musical knowledge and understandings are predicated on older information and experiences.

As we move from what Pestalozzi described as “from the simple to the complex,” we can help students process through and link old (known) musical patterns and vocabulary to new (unknown) musical experiences. Students can consider the aural qualities of new musical material (tonality, duration, intervals, patterns, etc.) by comparing it to the musical qualities they already know.

Sequence Options

As we put together a sequence of musical patterns, we want the information to be in a logical and artistic flow of musical ideas.

The way we get there is by choosing a sequence that has patterns organically represented in the repertoire. The role of the teacher is not to manufacture a curricular experience. Instead, it is to help students guide their ears and pull out extractable patterns.

With the criteria of a logical and artistic flow of patterns represented organically in the repertoire, there are many possible options for musical sequences! And music teachers certainly use a variety of well-thought out progressions of musical ideas in our teaching. Teachers naturally use different sequences, and even within classrooms following the same sequence, no two teachers give instruction or direct learning in exactly the same way.

Each situation is unique.

Example Sequences

Here are a few example sequences for elementary general music. Certainly more exist in our classrooms, and even more exist in musical repertoire.

The reason to consider these examples is to illustrate that each of us can make informed decisions about our progressions based on many different factors.

A list of sources is included at the bottom of this post.

Rhythm and Pitch Sequences

Many educators choose to structure their curricula largely around rhythm and pitch.

In my opinion, this is because having aural training and common vocabulary around rhythm and pitch allows us to communicate more clearly about other musical elements. 

So for example, we can describe the form of a song easier if we can describe the rhythm changes in the different sections. It’s easier for us to describe the harmonic outline of a piece if we have training and a common vocabulary to describe the contour of the bass line. 

In this decision of a curriculum outline, rhythm and pitch function as pillar progressions, and do a lot of heavy lifting in the framing of other elements.

Here are a few examples - to reiterate, there are more options available than what is represented here!

Form, Texture & Harmony

Other musical elements, such as form, texture, harmony, dynamics, etc., also arise organically from the repertoire.

However, we typically don’t see curricula grounded on these elements in the way we see them oriented around rhythm and tonal patterns.

Additionally, many of these micro-concepts arise as students are ready for them from a skills-based perspective. There is a natural physical, cognitive, and aural level readiness students work through on their way to things like arpeggiated borduns and parallel harmony.

Which One Should I Use?

Because each of these sequences is a skillfully-crafted progression of micro-concepts that are naturally represented in the repertoire, how might we go about choosing one to use?

I prefer the one we’re using inside The Planning Binder, but the good news is that rarely will we find ourselves stuck with one set sequences we find on a website or in a textbook.

Year to year, school to school, and perhaps within a single semester, we can pivot and make adjustments based on what will work best for our students. Though consistency in the sequence overall will improve cohesive learning, we are largely free to adjust our focus based on student feedback.

Listen to Dr. Amanda Hoke talk about changing her melodic sequence in tomorrow’s podcast episode.

Considering a few options gives us a sense of the menu we have when looking for a spiraled progression of concepts for our programs.

Implications of a Sequence

Ultimately, that is one of the big implications for a teaching sequence.

The progression we choose will impact the repertoire we select.

The dance is also true in reverse: the repertoire we select will impact the sequence we choose.

With this lens, when we come across a fun activity we want to try, the question is not, “What grade is this song for?” The question instead becomes, “What previous knowledge or interaction is this song experience predicated on?” 

What’s Missing Here?

There are many things missing from a curriculum outline like the one in this post!

Musical Content

From a content standpoint, there are plenty of concepts that exist in music that aren’t listed here at all! Music is a big subject to tackle and it extends far outside this document.

Howard Gardner commented that “the enemy of understanding is coverage,” and I think that is helpful here. By necessity, and for the sake of prioritizing understanding over coverage, we choose to consciously interact with some elements and not with others.

Musical Pedagogy

The other thing is when we start to think about what this document might look like in our classrooms, it becomes very obvious that there are a lot of things missing here in terms of musical actions.

This document tells us what students are learning, broadly speaking, but it doesn’t tell us what students are doing with this information. This gives us the content, not the instruction. We know we’re going to go far beyond reading and writing with these patterns and concepts, but that isn’t reflected here.

With each concept, there are so many ways we could actualize our knowledge with musical skills, and many different dimensions of social interactions and connections. We could also add things like enduring understandings or macro concepts or how we’ll show our learning with an authentic performance assessment. The opportunities for rich, lived, classroom experiences and curricular lenses are functionally endless.

What is Curriculum?

We tend to weave together a lot of things when we use the word, “curriculum.” Wiggins and McTighe talked about the latin roots of the word as “the course to be run.” Colleen Conway also talked about curriculum as being so much more than a document - we’re talking about what is  taught, what is learned, and how we will move students through the learning process. 

This document is limited on purpose.

It gives us a big picture of how musical concepts are spiraled throughout the program. In my opinion it’s extremely useful because it gives us a way to streamline our decisions, that way we’re not stuck looking for fun activities to fill time in our lesson planning. The activities can lead to something that we know is leading to something else.

 
 

- Sources -

 
 

How to cite this article

Boler, V. (2023, July 9). Curriculum map for elementary general music. Victoria Boler.

Sources

I learned about the construction of this document from a music teacher named Mrs. Rogers when I was in my undergrad. Thank you, Mrs. Rogers!

Benedict, C. (2016). "Reading" Methods. In C. R. Abril & B. M. Gault (Eds.), Teaching general music: Approaches, issues, and viewpoints (pp. 347–367). essay, Oxford University Press.

Brandt, R. (1993). On teaching for understanding: A conversation with Howard Gardner. ASCD. Retrieved November 2022, from https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/on-teaching-for-understanding-a-conversation-with-howard-gardner 

Bruner, J. (1960). The process of education. Harvard University Press. 

Conway, C. (2015). Defining Musicianship-Focused Curriculum and Assessment . In Musicianship-focused curriculum and assessment (pp. 3–21). essay, GIA Publications, Inc. 

Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 

Music Sequence Sources

Brumfield, S. (2012). First, we sing! Hal Leonard Corporation.

Eisen, A., & Robertson, L. (2005). Directions to literacy, teaching the older beginner: A teacher's guide to introducing music to the older beginner. Sneaky Snake Publications, LLC.

Eisen, A., & Robertson, L. (2009). Yearly plans: For coordinated use with an American methodology. Sneaky Snake Publications.

Eisen, A., & Robertson, L. (2010). An American methodology: An inclusive approach to musical literacy. Sneaky Snake Publications.

Frazee, J. (2006). Orff Schulwerk today: Nurturing musical expression and understanding. Schott Music Corp.

Frazee, J. (2012). Artful - playful - mindful: A new Orff-Schulwerk curriculum for music making and music thinking. Schott.

Frazee, J., & Kreuter, K. (1997). Discovering Orff: A curriculum for music teachers. Schott.

Goodkin, D. (2013). Play, sing, & dance: An introduction to Orff Schulwerk. Schott.

Houlahan, M., & Tacka, P. (2015). Kodály today: A cognitive approach to elementary music education. Oxford university press.

Klinger, R. (2014). Lesson planning in a Kodály setting: A guide for music teachers. Organization of American Kodály Educators.

Peek, Aimee Noelle, "A Comparison of the Kodály Methodology and Feierabend's Conversational Solfege" (2007). Theses and Dissertations. 27.

Rappaport, J. (2000). The Kodály teaching weave. Bel Canto Press.

Sams, R., & Hepburn, B. A. (2015). Purposeful pathways: Possibilities for the elementary music classroom. Music is Elementary.

Steen, A. (1992). Exploring Orff: A teacher's guide. Schott.

Zapatitos Blancos: One Rhyme, Three Processes:

One of the joys of a repertoire and concepts-based curriculum is that we get to imagine songs and rhymes through many different lenses. This is what allows us to extend a song across several lessons in a single grade-level, and as we’ll talk about today, how we can extend a song or rhyme across multiple age groups.

Today we’re working with the Mexican children’s game, “Zapatitos Blancos.” This game is a hit from Kindergarten (and younger) all the way through 5th grade!

 
 

Zapatitos Blancos

Importantly, this game can stand alone as its own musical experience. Speaking the rhyme and playing the beat-passing game could certainly take up several lesson segments on its own!

To play the game, students sit in a circle with both feet extended.

One player in the middle pats a steady beat around the circle, tapping each person’s shoe as everyone speaks the rhyme. On the last beat of the rhyme, the person on whom the beat lands says how old they are. The beat continues around the circle for however old the student is. (For example, if the student is seven, the beat passes seven more shoes.)

When the beat lands on the final shoe, that person’s foot is eliminated from the game. They tuck it underneath them, out of the circle, so one foot is still in the game and one foot is out.

Continue through rounds as time allows.

Introducing the Rhyme & Game

Students can interact with the game to this rhyme at a few different levels in the first introduction. They might point around the circle with us as they listen. They might make a mental guess about what shoe the beat will land on. They might speak the numbers at the end.

When we introduce the game, the teacher sits in the middle of the group and points around the circle of shoes. Asking questions between each round is a great way to help students develop their own list of curious questions when they hear a new song or rhyme. 

  • What do you notice about our rhyme? 

  • Are there any words you recognize? 

  • What do you think our rhyme is about? What makes you think that? 

  • What else do you notice? 

After several rounds, students may have pieced together some of the translation with known vocabulary words like “blancos,” “azul,” “anos,” and “tienes.” 

In other situations, students may already know this rhyme and game from their own childhoods! If it’s already a known rhyme, this is a good time for students to share (if they would like to) how they learned it and who they play it with.

Let’s explore three different ways we might use this rhyme in an active music room: steady beat, form & movement, and improvisation.

  1. Steady Beat

Steady beat is a natural curricular focus for this rhyme, given that the game itself is dependent upon a steady beat! After students know the game itself we can add a few layers of steady beat experiences in the preparation stage. These activities can be appropriate for kindergarten or first grade musicians, or whatever age group is working on steady beat.

Passing games take practice! Especially with young musicians, these are skills we can help develop through intentional scaffolding. Read about scaffolding passing games here.

“Mix & Match” Beat Development Activities

Unlike the activities we’ll discuss for older grades, these experiences serve more as a “mix and match menu” of steady beat development experiences. These interactions can last multiple weeks!

Though physical, aural, and visual preparation are often inextricably linked, we can highlight these skills in focused invitations.

Physical Experiences:

We might use any of the following physical experiences on their own, or we might choose a few to layer on each other as students are ready.

Speak the rhyme and play the game. When students are out…..

  • The eliminated student and the teacher play a steady music on a tubano in the next round of the game

  • The eliminated students (without the teacher) play steady music on a tubano

  • The eliminated student points steady music on a shoe or shoe icon

  • The eliminated students tracks four shoes or four shoe icons

Aural Experiences:

We can pair or alternate some of the physical experiences with aural experiences as well. Here are some options:

  • Students inner hear the rhyme and point around the circle. Do all students end up on the same shoe at the end?

  • Ask: As we point around the circle, does our pointing speed up, slow down, or stay the same the whole entire time? Speak the rhyme and play the game, then students turn to a shoulder partner to discuss.

  • Ask: How many steady points do we do in our whole rhyme? Students speak and point around the circle while counting in their heads.

The game, the physical activities, and the aural activities complement each other as students develop beat awareness and beat-keeping skills over time!

Form & Movement

Depending on your students, these activities can be appropriate for 2nd grade musicians.

The movements in this particular form and movement sequence correspond to one sound on a beat, two equal sounds on a beat, one sound on a beat followed by a beat of silence, and one sound elongated over two beats. 

These activities do not have to involve standardized Western notation, though they could! This will depend on where students are in their process of linking aural awareness to visual representation of sounds.

Experience 1: Movement exploration 

In the first experience we’ll introduce students to the B section of the rhyme, and explore shoe movements that we’ll build on later. Everything is predicated on an initial experience of speaking the rhyme and playing the game.

Zapatitos movements:

  • How could our shoes move?

  • The teacher models turning fingers into shoes and speaks: 

    • Step step step step zapatitos step step. Motion for students to echo

Movement brainstorm:

  • Ooooo we can tiptoe. But I’m thinking of another way shoes can move… Oh I know! We can ….. 

    • (speak) Sliiide, sliiiide, zapatitos sliiiide. Motion for students to echo 

  • At this point we might transition to staying seated but putting our feet out in front of us so students can move with larger muscle groups.

  • That was fun. I’m imagining something else… let’s stay seated and use our real shoes tooooooo…. 

    • (speak and move feet) Step step, step step, zapatitos, step step. Motion for students to echo.

  • After a few rounds, students suggest their own motions and the class tries them out

Experience 2 

In the next class, or whenever students are ready to move on, we’ll start by reviewing our previous experience, and then extend the previous experience by asking students to come up with their own movement words in the B section.

Review previous class:

  • Speak the rhyme and play the game

  • Review ways our zapatitos can move (step, tiptoe, slide, etc.).

  • Ask students for suggestions of words to use

Non-locomotor movement:

  • Choose one movement for our zapatitos from students’ suggestions. Speak the rhyme while staying in place and stepping a steady beat. As a B section, continue to stay in place but add shoe movements: 

    • Example: Twist twist, twist twist, zapatitos, twist twist or Waddle waddle, waddle waddle, zapatitos, waddle waddle, etc.

  • Try out several different student suggestions of movements.

  • Eventually narrow options to tiptoe, step, jump, and slide

Experience 3

When students are ready to move on (in the same class, or in a following class) we can explore traveling zapatitos after reviewing the previous experiences as necessary.

Locomotor movement: 

  • All students speak the rhyme while standing in their spots and stepping a steady beat. A few students model how to move around the room in open space while speaking the rhyme. 

    • The class discusses whether or not the students stayed in open space the whole time, and if they made adjustments to where the other students were as they were moving. 

    • Repeat as necessary with different students and student groupings.

  • All students speak the rhyme while moving around the room in open space. At the end of the rhyme, the teacher displays a B section. Students stand in place and perform the stationary movements. 

  • Repeat with other movement options.

This movement activity is versatile - we can circle back when students are working with standardized Western notation, or leave the experience here. Importantly, activities like this involve students in creative musical thinking as we wonder how our shoes can move and then extend our ideas to locomotor movement and improvisation within specific parameters.

Rhythmic Improvisation: Body Percussion & Barred Instruments

This activity is from the 2022 - 2023 Planning Binder curriculum, in the Older Beginners concept plan. These experience happen after students have spoken the rhyme and played the game. This is also not students’ first experience with improvisation.

These interactions also begin with movement in open space, similar to the activities in the previous section.

Experience 1:

After students have spoken the rhyme, played the game, and clapped the rhythm of the words, we can extend the rhythm vs beat work by asking them to clap the rhythm of the words while stepping the steady beat.

Rhythm vs Beat:

  • Clap the rhythm of the words while stepping the steady beat in place

  • When students are successful doing this in place, they can make their movements travel around the room in open space.

Echo Improvisations:

  • Students step the beat and clap the words in open space, then stand still as the teacher claps eight beats. Students echo, then speak the rhyme and move in open space again.

Experience 2:

When students are ready, we’ll extend the traveling rhythm vs beat work to also incorporate some improvisation.

Review:

  • Speak the rhyme and play the game.

  • Review walking around the room in open space, stepping the steady beat and clapping the rhythm of the words

Echo Improvisations:

  • Students step the beat and clap the words in open space, then stand still as the teacher claps eight beats. Students echo, then speak the rhyme and move in open space again.

Improvise a Response:

  • When we see that students have the flow of the activity, we can add another layer of improvisation by asking students to improvise their response instead of echoing the teacher

Aurally Identify:

  • After several repetitions, students choose their favorite one of their improvisation responses. Lead students in playing their improvisation a few times so it’s memorized.

  • Students figure out their rhythm on rhythm syllables by thinking of how many sounds they are using on each beat.

  • When students are ready, they teach it to a nearby friend.

Experience 3:  

The previous experiences can take several classes, or perhaps one class, depending on the students! If students are ready for an extension, we can transfer our improvisation experiences to barred instruments.

Review:

  • Review speaking the rhyme while walking in open space, then improvising their own response to the teacher’s rhythm

Take a Walk:

  • For this activity, instruments can be set up in any mode or tonality - this is a nice time to explore a mode students haven’t had much experience with. D Dorian is a great option for this - we can set up in D dorian by taking off the lowest C.

  • Seated in pairs behind a barred instrument, students take turns “walking” their mallets up and down the bars. If we imagine our mallets are little white and blue shoes, what does it sound like to gently step or tiptoe up and down?

Bordun:

  • Both partners speak the rhyme together. As they speak, one person claps the rhythm of the words and the other plays a steady beat chord bordun.

  • As a B section, the clapping partner improvises eight beats and the partner behind the instrument gently clicks their mallets to echo their partner’s improvisation.

  • Switch jobs so both partners have a chance to play the bordun, and to improvise a clapped rhythm

Barred Instrument Improvisation:

  • Repeat the activity. This time, the clapping partner improvises an eight-beat rhythm and the partner at the barred instrument improvises a new melody to their partner’s rhythm.

  • Switch jobs so both players have a chance to improvise a rhythm and a melody

With each new lesson segment, we build and extend on previous experiences. This is one of the keys to helping older beginners be successful with improvisation. Transferring improvisations to barred instruments adds another layer of student choice and peer interaction. The collaboration in this activity is part of what makes it so enjoyable for older beginners!

Rhythm, Movement, & IMPROVISATION

A game like “Zapatitos Blancos” can hold our attention for many weeks! There are endless possibilities for this rhyme across multiple grade-levels, and woven throughout multiple classes.

When we use repertoire as a jumping-off point for developing knowledge and skills, there are opportunities to explore ideas like steady beat, movement, and improvisation through a play-based lens.