New Lesson Ideas I Loved This Year

I won't lie, this school year was so tough in so many ways. But as I look back, I'm pretty surprised at how many new ideas I tried that were a huge success this year! Last week I shared some general ideas from teaching that I plan to continue, and today I'm sharing new lesson ideas I tried this year! These are definitely going into my regular lesson rotation- I highly recommend them all to any teachers looking to refresh your own lesson plans for next year!

1. Science of Sound

I did a couple of quick lessons on the science of sound with 6th grade this year, sortof on a whim because of the way the timing of my other units starting and ending lined up. It went so well, and I found so many cool resources that I couldn't even fit into my short timeframe this year, that I'm hoping to expand it further next year. Right now my thought is to expand it out to include a lesson or two in other grade levels and circle back to it each year, but we'll see what I come up with when I really sit down with my long-range curriculum plans this summer. Here are some of the highlights from my lessons this year:

2. Music of Colombia

I have been teaching music of Bolivia to my 1st graders for years but with the Encanto movie out this year I decided to switch things up and do a unit on Colombia instead. I learned so much through my research and the unit was a huge success, both in engagement and in how well students were able to learn the same musical concepts through the lesson material.  Here are the lesson activities I used this year: 

3. 5/4 Meter

I have always done a couple of brief lessons on 5/4 meter using "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck with 4th grade to expand their understanding of time signatures and meter. But this year they just weren't grasping it as well, and we were ahead of my normal pacing on other concepts, so I expanded it into a whole series of lessons just on 5/4! I personally have always been fascinated by unusual time signatures and I found my students really enjoyed and learned a lot from diving deeper into it this year as well! Here are some of the highlights from those lessons: 

I hope this gives you some new ideas to try next year! I'd love to hear about your successes from this past year as well- what were some new lessons you tried this year that you and your students loved? Let me know in the comments!