Unit Plan 31 (Grade 5 Music): Music & Imagination

Focus: Use music as a springboard for creative movement and visual art, helping students connect sound, imagery, and personal experiences.

Grade Level: 5

Subject Area: Music (General Music)

Total Unit Duration: 1–3 class meetings (50–60 minutes each; Session 1 required, Sessions 2–3 optional)

I. Introduction

In this unit, students explore how music sparks imagination. They listen to contrasting pieces and describe the images, stories, and moods they hear, then respond with creative movement or visual art. Students connect their responses to their own interests and experiences, noticing how different people imagine different things from the same music. By the end, they create a short movement or art-based response and explain how their musical and artistic choices fit a purpose (scene, story, character, or mood).

Essential Questions

• How can music inspire pictures, stories, or movement in our minds?
• Why do different people imagine different scenes or emotions when they hear the same music?
• How do our interests, experiences, and skills shape the musical and artistic choices we make?
• How can we use creative movement, drawing, or sound to show what music makes us think and feel?

II. Objectives and Standards

Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:

1. Describe images, stories, and emotions they imagine while listening to selected musical excerpts.
2. Create a short creative response (movement sequence, tableau, or visual art) that matches the mood or story of a musical selection.
3. Improvise simple rhythmic or melodic ideas that support a scene, story, or image, and explain how these ideas connect to a specific purpose and context.
4. Explain how their personal interests, experiences, and skills influenced the musical and artistic choices they made.
5. Present a brief “Music & Imagination Response” and use simple language to explain how their creative choices show the intent of the music and their own ideas.

Standards Alignment — Grade 5 Music (NAfME-Aligned)

• MU:Cr1.1.5a — Improvise rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic ideas and explain how they connect to a specific purpose and context (such as social, cultural, or historical).
  • Example: Improvising an 8-beat accompaniment for a historical scene and explaining how tempo and harmony match the mood.
• MU:Cn10.0.5a — Demonstrate how interests, knowledge, and skills relate to personal choices and intent when creating, performing, and responding to music.
  • Example: Explaining why a student chose percussion based on interest and skill.

Success Criteria — Student-Friendly Language

• I can describe what I picture or feel when I listen to a piece of music.
• I can create movement, a drawing, or a simple sound idea that matches a story, scene, or emotion in the music.
• I can explain how my musical choices (tempo, dynamics, instrument, rhythm) fit a purpose like a scene, character, or mood.
• I can talk about how my interests and experiences shaped what I created.
• I can share my work respectfully and explain how it shows my imagination and intent.