S14: E262 The Summer Blueprint: Grade Level Plans

This is the third and final podcast episode in the Summer Blueprint series about lesson planning.  While you could do these ideas any time of the year, summer is a great time to put together curriculum ideas shared in episode 260, long range plans shared in episode 261, and short range plans in today’s episode.  Or if you’re listening to this during the school year, these ideas work anytime too!

Honestly, short range plans are my favorites!!  I think it’s because we finally get down to the nitty gritty of what we’re going to do in specific classes and I love that.  

There are several ways to lesson plan based on grade levels this summer.  A few questions to consider: 

Where do you start?  

What are you wanting to accomplish in each grade?  

What specific concepts are you working on?  

What do you need to get in place to get these lessons ready?  

And how do you work on grade level plans in the summer?

Here are five ideas for how to work on grade level plans this summer:

1. Start with long range plans

One starting place is to start with long range plans.  Outlining yearly concepts is something that can be created during the summer once you’ve determined the concepts you want to teach in each grade.  I find it more challenging to determine my short range plans in the summer because weekly and daily plans often move at a different pace than our expectations might be.  We can’t plan those too far in advance because classes move differently through material from year to year.  However, the long range plans can and will guide your weekly and daily plans.  And they’re beneficial in keeping you clear on what to focus on next.  Listen in to episode 261 to hear more ideas about long range planning and head to my website to get a long range plan google sheet template to get started.

2. Make a list of song material from this past year by grade level and find new song material

Make lists of all of the songs you taught each grade level this past year.  Which songs do you want to keep?  This will help you determine where there might be gaps in song material or in grade levels.  It will give you an idea of the song material you have that you love and the material you want to find.

Several ways to find new song material:

1. Sing through songs in books you already own

2. Ask music teacher friends for their favorite song lists

3. Attend summer workshops or levels courses

4. If you teach elementary ages, educator Victoria Boler is an incredible resource for song material and lesson planning processes.  Follow her on Instagram @victoriaboler and find more information on her website at www.victoriaboler.com

3. Create assessments

Maybe you’re feeling good with song material, but you’re wanting to find clearer ways to assess students informally and formally.  Summer is a great time to create these!  Build out a game-based assessment in Kahoot, Gimkit or Blooket.  Create a Google Form to assess student knowledge.  Or create a worksheet in Canva that you can print or share online with students.

The first part to creating an assessment is to figure out what skills or concepts you want to assess.  A few assessment ideas:

1. Listening assessments (rhythm based or melody based): think short phrases often 4-beats in length; students write rhythms performed or add noteheads on lines or spaces on the staff to show the melody (so/mi, so/mi/la, do/re/mi)

2. Pitch assessments: singing games with individual opportunities to sing a solo

3. Individual assessments:  What do you assess or want to assess for individual skills?  Think about creating worksheets and single point rubrics (one of my favorites) that relate to individual skills.  If your report card has categories for you to share about student skills, this might be a great guide for what to assess.

4. Group assessments: if you do group projects, put together a grid with percentages for each category assessed.  Room at the bottom for comments.  This worksheet could be created in an outline form without any information provided.  Then when you are doing a group project during the year, the outline is ready to be filled in for the specific project you’re doing

4. Put together a lesson structure for classes

If you’re not in the headspace to put together specific materials or assessments, you could begin by outlining how you want to structure the flow of your daily classes.  Plan out the template for everything from what students do as they walk into the room to how they leave at the end of class and everything in between.  Again, this is only one way to structure your classes!  It’s not the only way.  Adjust as needed for the students you teach!  You know them better than anyone else.

1. First, know the length of your classes.

2. Determine how many activities you want to have in each class period.

Younger students need more activities than older students.  For Kinder, try to switch up what they’re learning and experiencing every 3-5 minutes.  For 1st to 2nd grade, a new activity might occur every 5-7 minutes.  3rd and 4th grade, a new activity every 5-10 minutes.  5th grade, a new activity every 10-13 minutes.

If you have a 50 minute class, you’ll need 10-12 activities for Kinder, 8-10 activities for 1st-2nd grade, 5-7 activities for 3rd-4th grade and 4-6 activities for fifth grade.

Middle school general music classes offer a wide variety in the length of activities.  At times I’ve planned 5 or 6 activities such as singing a choir piece, writing rhythms, playing a game, performing body percussion and playing recorders.  Or I’ll work on a specific xylophone piece with students for 20 minutes - watching their level of focus and engagement throughout - before moving on to a second activity.  

Planning for classes becomes easier as you spend time creating what you think will work and then implementing the lessons and watching how students respond and making adjustments for timing of activities.

Once you determine how many activities you’ll need, create an outline.  Something like this for 3rd or 4th grade:

• Opening Activity (song)

• Moderate Focused Activity (body percussion piece)

• MovementHigh concentration area (could be longest part of the lesson with instruments, writing and focus on specific musical skills)

• Game

• Moderate focused activity

• Closing activity

5. Create a lesson plan template for each grade

This template will be your guide that can help you plug in musical activities for each class throughout the year.  You don’t need to plan out all of the content for specific lesson plans but having a template is a great way to make life easier once you begin putting together your specific lesson plans in the fall.

Best part: you can edit as you and change up what isn’t working along the way.

Recap

The five things you can do this summer to prep grade level plans are:

1. Start with long range plans

2. Make a list of song material from this past year by grade level and find new song material

3. Create assessments

4. Put together a lesson structure for classes

5. Create a lesson plan template for each grade level