The Arts Unit Creative Teachers
3 to 6 – lesson 2
Performance, listening and movement activities for 3 to 6
Student music resource developed by The Arts Unit in consultation with Kay Taylor
Years 3 to 6 music
Overview
Lesson 2 focuses on developing a deeper understanding of beat.
Students use this understanding to perform body percussion and bucket drumming.
Learning intentions
Through this lesson:
all students will recognise that music has a beat
most students will perform body percussion and maintain the beat
some students will need teacher support to perform body percussion and maintain the beat.
Assessment opportunities
Student progress can be monitored through a range of assessment strategies differentiated according to individual student needs. Assessment opportunities could include:
observation of student ability to maintain the beat and perform with body percussion
observation of student understanding of repeating or looping the body percussion pattern.
Activity 1
Required resources
Teacher tambourine
Key vocabulary
Beat
Accent
Differentiation
Teacher adaptions as required
Instructions
Students stand in a circle and walk on the spot to the beat (L means left foot, R means right foot):
L, R, L, R.
Repeat this pattern as required.Students walk on the spot to the beat. Students clap their hands on beat 1 each time to accent the first beat of the bar. Numbers in brackets indicate the beat:
L (1), R (2), L, (3), R (4).
Repeat this pattern as required.Students walk around in any direction to the beat. Students stamp their feet on beat 1 each time. The teacher plays beat 1 on a tambourine:
L (1), R (2), L, (3), R (4).
Repeat this pattern as required.
Teacher with a tambourine
Activity 2
Required resources
Audio recording of The High Road (section 1 is available to stream directly from this activity or to download from the downloads page)
Plastic buckets and rulers/pencils
Key vocabulary
Beat
Body percussion
Differentiation
Teacher adaptions as required
Where required, the teacher to work with a student to create a body percussion pattern
Students could work with a partner to create a body percussion pattern
Instructions
Students stand in a circle and copy the teacher performing body percussion to the beat:
stamp, stamp, clap, click, stamp, stamp, clap, click.
Progress around the circle, asking each student to demonstrate a body percussion pattern for all students to copy.
Work with body percussion until the students feel confident and ready to transfer to bucket drumming.
Students sit on the floor with a plastic bucket and 2 rulers in front of them. The teacher plays a rhythm the students copy.
Example rhythms are provided as a starting point.
The teacher can vary the rhythms.
After practising the copying activity, students can drum the demonstrated rhythm together with the teacher.
Students perform layered rhythms on bucket drums. For an added challenge, see how many layers can be maintained simultaneously.
Students perform one of the rhythms as an ostinato or loop (repeating over and over) along with the recording of The High Road (section 1).
Example rhythms
The High Road – section 1
Duration 1:29
The High Road (Section 1).mp3Third-party content attributions
Close-Up Shot of a Person Playing Tambourine by Karolina Grabowska is licensed under the Pexels licence.
The High Road, composed by Tracy Burjan, arranged by Tracy Burjan, Paul Burjan and Susan Sukkar, © Tracy Burjan, Paul Burjan and State of NSW (Department of Education), 2022, reproduced and communicated with permission.