Roselawn Elementary School
First Grade Music - Units and Learning Targets
Unit 1 Rhythm – Ongoing
Essential Question: How does music happen in time? How is the beat divided? How do I
accurately echo a given rhythm?
Learning Targets
1. Students will demonstrate a steady beat and no steady beat (B.4.9)
2. Students will understand and use quarter notes, eighth notes and quarter rests (E.4.4)
3. Students will accurately echo rhythmic phrases using quarter notes, eighth notes and quarter
rests (B.4.4)
Unit 2 Melody - Ongoing
Essential Question: What is melodic movement? How can I identify the different shapes of
melodic movement?
Learning Targets
1. Students will identify melodic phrases that move upward, downward and stay the same
(E.4.7, F.4.1)
2. Students will accurately echo melodic phrases (C.4.5, F.4.1)
3. Students will demonstrate movement to match melodic phrases of a song (F.4.6)
Unit 3 Harmony - Ongoing
Essential Question: What does harmony add to music? How can I add harmony to a song?
Learning Targets
1. Students will identify and perform ostinato on mallet percussion (B.4.9)
2. Students will perform chordal borduns on mallet percussion (B.4.9)
Unit 4 Tone Color/Timbre - Ongoing
Essential Question: How do different instruments/voices sound?
Learning Targets
1. Students will identify solo and group performances (F.4.5)
2. Students will identify the varied sounds of classroom rhythm instruments (F.4.5)
3. Students will explore the use of their own vocal instrument (A.4.2)
4. Students will explore found sounds with various timbres (C.4.4)
5. Students will use sound effects to enhance a story or dramatization (D.4.4)
Unit 5 Form - Ongoing
Essential Question: What is the importance of music notation? How can I recognize phrases
that are different and the same?
Learning Targets
1. Students will understand the repeat sign symbol (E.4.4)
2. Students will perform songs and instrumental pieces using echo (B.4.4)
3. Students will identify same/different phrases as well as A/B form (F.4.1, F.4.2)
Unit 6 Expression - Ongoing
Essential Question: How does music elicit emotion? How do we create emotion in music?
Learning Targets
1. Students will understand and practice louder and softer dynamics (A.4.2)
2. Students will understand and use slower and faster tempi (E.4.3)
3. Students will listen to and respond to the mood of a musical composition emotionally
and kinesthetically (high and low sounds, fast/slow tempi, loud/quiet dynamics,
up/down melodic movement, sound and silence, mood style characteristics) (E.4.3,
F.4.6)
Unit 7 History/Style - Ongoing
Essential Question: How does music communicate?
Learning Targets
1. Students will listen to and participate in songs, musical games and dances from a variety of
cultures (A.4.3, B.4.3, F.4.3)
2. Students will identify how music connects with other subject areas (H.4.2)
Unit 8 Composition/Performance - Ongoing
Essential Question: What makes a significant and meaningful performance?
Learning Targets
1.
2.
3.
4.
Students will sing songs with acceptable tone quality, pitch and expression (A.4.1)
Students will respond to conductor’s cues while singing in an ensemble setting (A.4.5)
Students will demonstrate appropriate audience and performance behaviors (I.4.1)
Students will create compositions using symbols (E.4.5)
Terms to Know and Use:
melody
staff
two eighths
ostinato
quarter note
form
quarter rest
echo