Instruments of the Orchestra

In this post, I'm compiling all of my lesson ideas, teaching strategies, and resources for teaching students about the instruments of the orchestra. If you need ideas for how to teach the instruments across all the elementary grade levels, or just looking for some new resources to add to your toolbox, you're in the right place!

Just like any other concept, I sequence my teaching of instruments- both of the western orchestra and other instruments in general- across grade levels. I start introducing a few instruments in Kindergarten, and then gradually build on that knowledge all the way through 6th grade. Check out this post for all the details on when I teach what:

A lot of the lesson activities I use for introducing students to various instruments are pretty straight-forward, but one of the concepts I find can be challenging but also important is the categories or families of instruments. Here are my top 3 lesson activities I have found most successful for teaching instrument families:

The most important resource for teaching students about instruments is high-quality performance examples where they can see and hear how the instrument works! Here are 3 posts with some of my favorites to share with my students- I try to share different ones in each grade level so they get to see a wide range:

I hope this gives you some new ideas to try in your classroom! If you have any questions or other ideas to share, please leave them in the comments. If you want to see my favorite lesson ideas and resources for other general music concepts, go to the general music concept index!