LEARN NC

K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Music Education — Grade 4

Goal 6: The learner will listen to, analyze, and describe music.

Objective 6.04. Identify visually and aurally a variety of instruments, including many orchestra and band instruments, and instruments from various cultures.

Additional related resources

We’re in the process of aligning our content for students to the Standard Course of Study. As we do, you’ll find it here.

General resources

Aligned lesson plans

How sound is like a wave: Investigating animal echolocation
In BioMusic, page 2.5
In this lesson, students will use two models to demonstrate how sound waves occur. They will infer how sound waves travel from a source and weaken as they spread. By demonstrating how sound echoes off objects, students will learn about animal echolocation.
Format: lesson plan (grade 5–6 Music Education and Science)
By Debra Hall and Crystal Patillo.
How can we view and distinguish sounds?
In BioMusic, page 2.4
In this engaging lesson, students will listen to recordings of various animals sounds and compare them with their visual representations on sound spectrograms. They will explore topics such as pitch, frequency, timbre, and vibration through animal vocalization, human voice, and instrumental composition.
Format: lesson plan (grade 4–5 Music Education)
By Debra Hall and Crystal Patillo.
Exploring the families of instruments
Students will learn about the families of instruments and conclude the lesson by constructing a model instrument from one of the families studied.
Format: lesson plan (grade 3–4 Music Education)
By Leslie Cothern.

Resources on the web

Chinese instruments
In this lesson from ARTSEDGE, students identify and classify Western instruments and traditional Chinese instruments. Each student researches and writes about a specific instrument, and then creates a version of the Chinese musical instrument using recycled... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade K–4 Music Education)
Provided by: ArtsEdge
Brass instruments and pitch
In this ARTSEDGE lesson, students create a “brass” instrument, make predictions, and explore how pitch changes based on the length of the air pipe. Students will: design investigations that determine what factors affect the... (Learn more)
Format: lesson plan (grade 3–5 English Language Arts and Music Education)
Provided by: ArtsEdge