ED3620

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

MUSIC LESSON PLAN

LESSON ORGANISATION
Year Level: 2 Time: 10:30am - 11:30am Date: 19/10/17 Students’ Prior Knowledge:
Previous Year:
Learning Area: The Arts: Music In year one, students would have used symbols, notation,
movement and relevant technology to explore and
Making:
communicate music ideas. However have not looked
Ideas
specifically at melody, but are able to recognise and use actions
• Exploration of, and experimentation with, the elements
to represent wide pitch differences and pitch direction while
of music through movement, body percussion, singing
singing in tune using a narrow range of notes.
and playing instruments to create music ideas
(ACAMUM082).
Previous Lessons:
• Communication and recording of music ideas using
• Students have been introduced to the topic of melody,
graphic and/or standard notation, dynamics and relevant
through using percussion instruments to discover the
technology (ACAMUM082).
difference between high and low notes.
Skills
• Hot Cross Buns: this rhyme has been used previously
• Development and consolidation of aural and theory skills
throughout the year so students know the words to the
by exploring the elements of music, including:
rhyme and the associated beat, but have not looked at the
o Texture (melody and accompaniment) to create music
melodic contour of the rhyme.
(ACAMUM080; ACAMUM082).

Provision for Learner Diversity/Educational Risk:

Advanced:
• For students who finish the improvisation activity early,
they will be provided with different shapes and letters.
They will represent these shapes and letters through
melody using their voices.
• For students who are more capable in Music, full version
of the song Hot Cross Buns will be used for exploration and
literacy components.

Assistance:
• Students who have learning difficulties are able to
complete the activities using the shortened version of Hot
Cross Buns (eliminate the sons/daughters line). This will
allow them to grasp the concept through a simplified
version of the music.
• When necessary, provide assistance to students if they are
finding the activity difficult by modelling.

Teacher’s Prior Preparation/Organisation:

• Colourful Scarves
• Percussion instrument
• Pipe cleaners/bendy rope/twine cut to approximately
20cm in length x30
• Cut-outs of shapes: Triangle, Rectangle, Square, Pentagon
• Cut-outs of letters: J, L, M, N, S, U, V, W, Z
• Sheet music of Hot Cross Buns for literacy activity
(simplified & extension version), see Appendix 1.
• Audio Song of Hot Cross Buns:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR3_8ehuF8k)

1
 ED3620
Lesson Objectives
1. Concept to be taught: Melody
2. The objective: Demonstrate melodic contour using movement, hand gestures and melodic instruments.

By the conclusion of this lesson students will be able to demonstrate the concept through:
• Imitation: Hot Cross Buns – Sing the song aurally with hand gestures that represent the high and low melodies in the song.
The class will sing along line by line.
• Exploration: Students will use pipe cleaners/yarn to create a melodic contour that represents the melodic contour of the
song Hot Cross Buns.
• Improvisation: In pairs, students will use the pipe cleaners/yarn to create their own melodic contour and then transfer the
melodic contour composition over to the melodic instrument percussion.
• Literacy: Students will draw the relevant lines below the sheet music of Hot Cross Buns to demonstrate the melodic
contour of the song.

LESSON PROGRESSION (attach worksheets, examples, marking key, etc, as relevant)

Resources/References:
Time Motivation and Introduction:
10:30am • To begin, explain to the students the objective of the lesson: Today we will be
Colourful Scarves
furthering our knowledge on Melody, looking at the concept we call Melodic
Contour. Last week’s lesson we touched briefly on high and low notes and Percussion instrument
recognising that there are distinct differences between the high and low sounds.
• Warm up:
o Explain to students that they are going play a warm up game using body
movement and coloured scarves to demonstrate the highs and lows of
melody.
o Demonstrate to students how they will be moving their body when they hear
the melodic notes being played (stand high with the scarf when there is a high
note, and kneel down low when a low note is played).
o Instruct students to move around the room in a certain way (skipping,
hopping, walking backwards), and play a high or low note on a melodic
instrument (percussion), allowing time between each note for the students to
demonstrate the sound of the note by body and scarf movement.
o To add diversity, instruct the students to move into groups of the number of
times the note is played each interval.
• Questioning:
o Instruct the students to sit in a circle.
o Other than instruments what other music elements have high and low notes?
Our voices
o Are the rhymes we use during class all sung at the same note? They can be,
but they can also be sung over a range of notes
o Do you think that in some rhymes there are high and low notes? Yes
o Tell the students that: The high and low movements of pitch in a tune or
melody is called melodic contour.
10:35am
Lesson Steps (Lesson content, structure & strategies) Audio Song of Hot Cross
1. Imitate: Buns:
• Explain to students: Now we have established that rhymes can have a melodic (https://www.youtube.c
contour we will be looking at a specific rhyme that has its own melodic contour. om/watch?v=nR3_8ehuF
• The rhyme that will be used to demonstrate the melodic contour to students is Hot 8k) played on
Cross Buns: speakers/screen
o Play the rhyme Hot Cross Buns on the speakers/screen. Sing the rhyme as a
class along with the audio to ensure everyone knows the words.
o Using the audio, sing Hot Cross Buns and model the melodic contour hand
gestures to the class. Move hands high to low accompanying the high and low
notes of the melody of the rhyme.
o Instruct the students to imitate the hand gestures. Repeat this as a whole

2
 ED3620
class until all students are comfortable in moving their hands up and down to
represent the high and low notes of the rhyme.
o Reveal to the class that the hands moving up and down symbolises the Pipe cleaners/yarn cut
melodic contour; which is when the pitch moves high to low or low to high in into approximately 20cm
10:40am in length per student
small steps.

2. Explore
• Hot Cross Buns melodic contour using pipe cleaners/yarn:
o Instruct the students to form and circle and sit down.
o Pair the students up.
o Give each student a piece of pipe cleaner/yarn (approximately 20cm) and
instruct the students to explore the melodic contour of Hot Cross Buns by
moving the pipe cleaners/yarn up and down on the floor to represent the high
and low sounds.
o Ask the students to sing the song while they are creating the melodic contour,
and encourage them to trace the melodic contour with their finger as they Cut-outs of shapes:
sing. Triangle
o Select a couple of pairs to sing the song to the class while tracing their Rectangle
melodic contour created by the pipe cleaners/yarn. Square
• Extension: Exploring melodic contour with shapes and letters Pentagon
o Hand out cut-outs of different shapes and letters to the students who have
finished early and accurately represented the melodic contour of Hot Cross
Buns.
o In pairs, instruct the students to represent the melodic contour of the shape Cut-outs of letters:
by singing on a neutral syllable. (Follow the lines of each shape with their J
finger and sing the melody of each line, eg. triangle: high / , low \ , constant L
_). M
10:50am o Instruct the pairs to pair up with other students who are completing the N
extension activity, and sing the melodic contour of the shape to each other. S
U
3. Improvise V
• Students create their own melodic contour using pipe cleaners/yarn and transfer W
over to percussion: Z
o Have students create their own melodic shapes using the pipe cleaners/yarn.
Model an example.
o Guide them in including highs and lows in their composition.
o Ask students to perform their pipe cleaner/yarn compositions for each other
by singing on a neutral syllable. Encourage the students to trace the melodic
contour of each shape with their finger as they sing.
o Instruct the students to transfer their melodic contour over to a melodic Music Journals
instrument (percussion). Make it clear to them that F and B are traditionally
not melodic notes on percussion, so avoid using the notes for composition. 2 versions of Sheet
o When necessary, provide assistance to students if they are finding the activity Music for different
11:10am difficult by modelling. learning levels
o Ask particular students to perform their pipe cleaner/yarn compositions on
the percussion to the class.

Key Questions & Assessment

4. Literacy:
• To demonstrate understanding of melodic contour students will use the sheet
music of Hot Cross Buns, to draw lines to demonstrate the movement of the
melody going up or down throughout the musical piece.
o Hand out the version of the sheet music suited to each student’s learning
level to glue into his or her music journal.
o Once the students have glued the sheet in, instruct them to draw below the
relevant music whether they think the sound is moving from high to low, low
to high or remaining the same by drawing simple lines. This represents their
understanding of the melodic contour.
• Students will also answer the following simple questions below the sheet music to
further demonstrate their understanding:
3
 ED3620
11:25am o What do the lines you have drawn under the music represent? The melodic
contour, the melody, the music moving from high to low and low to high.
o How can the sounds of music change? Through the melodic contour, music
can be played at high and low points.

Lesson Closure:
• To conclude the lesson, the class will perform Hot Cross Buns two more times. This
time rather than using hands, the whole body will be used. They can do this by
moving from standing, bending and bobbing down for the different melodic notes
in the rhyme:
o Hot - standing up straight
o Cross - bobbing down
o Buns – bending half way
• Explain that the hand movements will be used to assist with the positioning the
body. Demonstrate to the students.
• Allow students to join in on the next attempt. Based off judgment of student
performance repeat again. If students are struggling to grasp the concept of
moving the whole body, instruct those students to perform using just hand
gestures.
• To conclude the lesson, have students sitting and ask them the following questions
to assess student understanding:
o What are some of the different sounds that can be made when we are singing
or playing instruments like the marimba? High and low notes.
o What is the movement between high and low notes called? Melodic contour,
melody.
o When we are moving our hands or our bodies what are we representing?
Melodic Contour, melody, high and low notes in music.

Appendix 1 - Sheet Music

• Full version of sheet music
• Can be cut to first bar for students who have learning difficulties concerning literacy activities