Unit Plan 31 (Grade 2 Music): Music & Imagination
Grade 2 music unit where students use imagination, movement, and creative play to improvise sounds that express ideas, feelings, and personal interests.
Focus: Use music to inspire creative play and movement, improvising sounds for specific ideas, feelings, and personal interests.
Grade Level: 2
Subject Area: Music (Creating • Connecting • Movement/Play)
Total Unit Duration: 1–3 sessions (3+ weeks), 50–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
In this unit, students use imagination to connect music with stories, games, and favorite activities. They listen to short music examples and respond with creative movement and pretend play, then improvise rhythmic and melodic patterns to match pictures, scenes, or characters (e.g., sneaky cat, thunderstorm, playground). Students make choices about tempo, dynamics, and sound sources to show their ideas and explain how their music connects to things they like or know. The goal is to help students see music as a tool for creative play and self-expression.
Essential Questions
- How can music help us imagine stories, characters, and places?
- How do our interests and experiences shape the way we create and respond to music?
- What choices can we make (sounds, tempo, dynamics, patterns) to show a specific idea or feeling in our music?
- How does moving and playing to music help us understand it more deeply?
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:
- Improvise short rhythmic and/or melodic ideas to match a specific picture, scene, character, or feeling.
- Choose instruments, body percussion, or vocal sounds that fit a particular imaginative idea (e.g., “tiptoeing,” “flying,” “stormy”).
- Use movement and simple pretend play to show how music and imagination work together.
- Explain, in simple language, how their musical choices connect to their interests, knowledge, and intent.
- Work cooperatively in pairs or small groups to create and share short music-and-movement mini-scenes.
Standards Alignment — Grade 2 Music (NAfME-Aligned)
- MU:Cr1.1.2a — Improvise rhythmic and melodic patterns and musical ideas for a specific purpose.
- Example: Students improvise a short rhythm to represent rain or footsteps.
- MU:Cn10.0.2a — Demonstrate how interests, knowledge, and skills relate to personal choices and intent when creating, performing, and responding to music.
- Example: Creating music inspired by a favorite activity.
Success Criteria — Student Language
- I can make up (improvise) a short rhythm or melody to match a picture, character, or feeling.
- I can choose sounds and movements that fit my idea (e.g., quiet for sneaky, loud for stormy).
- I can explain how my music is connected to something I like, know, or imagine.
- I can work with classmates to create a short music-and-play scene and share it respectfully.