Unit Plan 29 (Grade 4 Music): Rhythm & Melody Games

Focus: Apply and refine rhythm and melody skills through structured music games that require accurate performance, expressive choices, and reading from iconic and standard notation.

Grade Level: 4

Subject Area: Music (Performance • Literacy • Ensemble Skills)

Total Unit Duration: 1–3 sessions (3+ weeks), 50–60 minutes per session

I. Introduction

Students strengthen their rhythm and melody skills by playing a series of structured music games that feel playful but demand accurate reading, rehearsing, and ensemble performance. Working with pattern cards, projected notation, and call-and-response activities, students read, clap, play, and sing short patterns in iconic (sticks/shapes) and standard notation. They rehearse to improve technical accuracy (steady beat, correct pitches, entrances) and expressive qualities (dynamics, articulation), and they problem-solve performance challenges together (e.g., tricky syncopations, echo timing).

Essential Questions

• How can games help us rehearse and improve our rhythm and melody skills?
• What does it mean to perform with technical accuracy and expressive qualities in an ensemble?
• How do musicians use iconic and standard notation to read and perform rhythms and melodies they have never heard before?
• When a performance challenge appears (a hard rhythm, entrance, or pitch), what strategies can we use to rehearse and refine it?

II. Objectives and Standards

Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:

1. Read and perform notated rhythm patterns (e.g., combinations of quarter notes, eighth notes, half notes, rests) using iconic and/or standard notation in clapping, body percussion, or instruments.
2. Read and perform short melodic patterns (so–la–mi, pentatonic fragments, or scale steps) from iconic and/or standard notation by singing or playing barred instruments/recorders.
3. Rehearse short rhythm & melody game sequences, using strategies such as slowing down, isolating tricky measures, counting out loud, and repeating patterns to improve technical accuracy.
4. Add expressive qualities (dynamics, articulation, phrasing) to game performances and explain how these choices shape the musical effect.
5. Work collaboratively in small groups or whole class to identify performance challenges in a game and propose solutions (e.g., mark counts, clap first, subdivide).

Standards Alignment — Grade 4 Music (NAfME-Aligned)

• MU:Pr5.1.4b — Rehearse to refine technical accuracy and expressive qualities and address performance challenges.
  • Example: Slowing down difficult sections during rehearsal.
• MU:Pr4.2.4b — When analyzing selected music, read and perform using iconic and/or standard notation.
  • Example: Sight-reading a melody from standard notation.

Success Criteria — Student Language

• I can read and perform rhythm patterns from notation (stick notation or standard notes) in a steady beat.
• I can read and perform simple melody patterns from notation using my voice or instrument.
• I can describe one rehearsal strategy I used to fix a performance challenge (like slowing down or clapping the rhythm first).
• I can perform a short game pattern with good technical accuracy (right rhythm/pitch) and expression (dynamics/articulation).
• I can work with my classmates to spot a tricky spot in our game and help find a way to make it better.