When the student body takes their summer vacation, diligent music educators use the newly available time to update lesson plans and find new, inspiring sources for curriculum, activities, learning games, and technical classroom applications.
Summertime is study time for music educators. To that effort, we’ve curated this handy array of lesson plan resources as you continue developing your music lesson repertoire.
Perform a lesson plan audit
Before you go searching the internet or asking other music educators you respect about lesson plans that work best for them, go back through your previous years’ lesson plans and take note of what worked, and what didn’t.
Remember, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Hang on to the things that were successful, making notes of improvements or additions that add dimension or more in-depth learning, and edit or remove lesson plan ideas that weren’t as successful. After you’re finished, create fresh, revised versions to try out next year.
Investigate free, online music learning platforms
There are plenty of free, online music learning platforms for students – both young and old. The most successful ones must be doing something right, and you can glean insights into effective teaching strategies by “investigating” and pretending you’re a user.
Some of these courses and practicums are hosted by the world’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, such as MIT and the Berklee College of Music.
Here’s a list to get you started:
Grab your lesson plans right from the ‘Net
Similarly, the internet is chock full of websites and platforms dedicated to providing free, or reasonably priced, lesson plans for instructors of all subjects. The lesson plans you’ll find are typically tried-and-true, created by passionate educators just like you, and are available for all ages and stages of learning.
Check out the free lesson plans offered by:
There’s no need to pretend that you invented all these lesson plans. In fact, what beautiful modeling you offer to music students when you explain how – and where – you found these new lessons. You can demonstrate first-hand that continual learning is a lifelong processes.
Want to have something ready right off the bat next fall? Read our post, 3 Innovative Lesson Plan Ideas for Fall.
Lesson plans focused on composition
Give your students the foundation, confidence, and tools required to compose their own music, and you’ll see some of your less-than-enthusiastic classicists light up with inspired creativity. If you’re a composer yourself, you have lots of composition tools at your disposal. If you aren’t as keen on composing, try some of the lesson plans, games, composition tools found here:
- TeAch-nology
- NAFME
- Education Closet
- Teachers Pay Teachers (another great lesson planning site where you pay small sums to teachers for their lesson plan creations).
Don’t forget to create plans for substitute teachers
Finally, there will be days when you can’t come to school, and the average substitute won’t have the musical know-how to competently follow your originally-scheduled plans. In that case, it’s beneficial to have music-related plans for the sub, so students stay on task.
We’ve put together our own Substitute Music Teacher Lesson Plans for younger students. You can also visit Mrs. Mircale’s Music Room. We also recommend re-visiting the Teachers Pay Teachers site again, where you’ll also find a range of music sub plans for the non-musical sub.
Do take time out to enjoy all of the relaxing and therapeutic space offered by the summer break, knowing that any time invested in planning music lessons now translates to reclaimed free-time when the busy school year starts again
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