2nd Grade Thanksgiving Lesson Plan Materials: Chalk/Chalkboard, Laptop and Speakers for playing Autumn Leaves Recording,

Instruments (Maracas, Klaves, Sandblocks, Tambourine). Objective: Students should gain a basic understanding of note values (8th, quarter, half, whole) from shortest to longest. A. Review Types of Notes 8th note, quarter note, half, and whole notes. 1. Have students write the eighth and quarter notes on the board. Practice clapping them, or using imaginary instruments. 2. Introduce half note and whole note values. -Practice clapping/saying the note values. -Have a students number the note values from shortest to longest. B. Autumn Leaves 1. Introduce Song a. Autumn Leaves, fall into winter. b. Were going to add our own nature sounds to this with instruments. c. Listen and find the quarter note and eighth note. 2. Review instrument rules. (Keep on desk until its time to play!) 3. Pass out instruments one row at a time, in this order: 1 Maracas (leaves rustling), 2 Klaves (woodpecker.) 3 Sandblocks (footsteps brushing the leaves), 4 Tambourine (jingle bells signaling that Christmas/winter is approaching) Process: a. Introduce each instrument by assigning it a fall nature sound (ex.: maracas are rustling leaves and demonstrate. b. Hand out the instrument to its respective row and practice the rhythm. c. Practice with the CD. Once the new group is comfortable with the rhythm, practice stopping them and switching to a different group. d. Teach the next group their rhythm. 4. Once everybody knows their pattern, we will go through the song switching between parts. They play when I tell them to. Most of the time, rows will play individually, but we may have up to two parts going at once. 5. Put instruments away row by row. C. 10 Days of Thanksgiving 1. Instruct students to sit on the floor in front of the board and make a word splash of types of food we eat for Thanksgiving. 2. Have students echo the very first part of the song and ask if the tune sounds familiar. 3. Sing the song a play on 12 Days of Christmas with a turkey on a plate being number 1. We will create and write in the rest of the words and sing them as we go along until weve sung the entire song.

4. Lets make this a little more interesting. a. When we get to #4 we will add quarter note rhythms to #1, on sticks. Students will play their pattern every time we reach number 1. b. When we get to #6, we will add 8th note rhythms to #5, on maracas. D. Wrap up 1. Review the two new notes we added when we played instruments today half and whole notes. -Which one is the longest? Which instrument played that note? -Go down to the shortest value, reviewing which instrument played which. Have a student number the notes from longest to shortest. Assessment: -Assess visually and aurally while students are playing are they playing patterns correctly? -Written assessments having students write note values on the board. -Ask questions throughout the lesson, prompting both group and individual responses. National Standards: 1 (Singing), 2 (Performing on Instruments), 3 (Improvising), 4 (Arranging Music), 5 (Reading and Notating Music), 6 (Listening to and Describing Music). Reflection: Originally, I had the Ten Days of Thanksgiving Activity at the beginning as an attention-getting opener, but the first time I taught this lesson I quickly realized it would be a better activity for the end of class and I changed things around. Since the main activity (Autumn Leaves) involved learning some new concepts, it was best to teach the new concepts right away when the students attention spans are at their best. Also, putting the most fun activity at the beginning caused the students to be too excitable and unfocused for the rest of the lesson. The Autumn Leaves activity was paced fine, so long as it wasnt dragged down by classroom management problems. I tried to keep students playing throughout that activity so they would stay interested, and this seemed to help. My teaching of the main concept (half notes and whole notes) really improved as I went along and I found ways to help students understand it more accurately and efficiently.