Experimenting with Percussion Lesson Plan: Creating and Playing Percussion Instruments

Lesson Procedure:

1. Review the instrument families that students have already studied, if any, and explain that they will be learning about a new type of instrument family today.
2. Hold up a glass or jar filled partially with water and ask students what type of instrument they think could be created with it. Brainstorm ideas with students and accept all responses. Allow volunteers to demonstrate different ways they think the glass can be used to produce sound.
3. Project the Activity for the class and read through the directions with students. Experiment a bit with several glasses and jars filled with varying levels of water, and facilitate a class discussion about what students observe. Ask students to describe the appearance, sound, and characteristics of the glasses or jars. What real instruments are they similar to? How? What might the instrument family might be called?
4. Show the Word Wall and introduce the term 'percussion' to students. Share the other vocabulary words, as well, asking students to use the words to tell about their experiences with different instruments and music. What kind of sound effects have they heard before?
5. Play the Percussion Instruments movie for the class. Pause throughout the movie to discuss the concepts and connect them to students' prior knowledge.
6. Return students' attention to the glasses/jars. What might be a good name for this new instrument? What makes it part of the percussion family? How is it similar to and different from other percussion instruments featured in the movie? You may wish to use a graphic organizer from BrainPOP Educators to help record and analyze students' responses.
7. Divide students into small groups to complete the next set of activities. They can experiment with glasses and jars at the same time, or if your students need more supervision and guidance, one group can work with you to complete the percussion Activity while other groups work independently. The independent groups may take the Easy Quiz or Hard Quiz on your classroom computers, completing the Draw About It activity when they're done. Other groups may read books about percussion instruments, complete the Write About It activity as a journal prompt, or explore various percussion instruments you have available.