Unit Plan 8 (Grade K Music): Sound Exploration
Kindergarten music unit where students explore instruments and found sounds, create simple sound patterns, and organize musical ideas with icons and pictures.
Focus: Explore classroom instruments and found sounds to generate and organize simple musical ideas.
Grade Level: K
Subject Area: Music (Sound Exploration • Improvisation • Iconic Notation)
Total Unit Duration: 2–4 sessions (2+ weeks), 20–30 minutes per session
I. Introduction
In this unit, students become sound explorers. With guidance, they try out classroom instruments (like shakers and drums) and found sounds (like tapping chairs or snapping fingers) to discover how sounds can be loud/soft, long/short, and high/low. They learn how to put sounds in a simple order and begin to organize their ideas using pictures or symbols (iconic notation) or simple recordings. Students see that any sound can become part of music when they listen, explore, and decide how to play it.
Essential Questions
- How can we explore different sounds using instruments and objects around us?
- What makes a sound loud or soft, long or short, or high or low?
- How can we remember our sound ideas using pictures or simple recordings?
- How do we work safely and respectfully while exploring many different sounds?
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:
- With guidance, explore classroom instruments and found objects to create different sounds (tap, shake, scrape).
- Describe simple sound differences such as loud/soft, long/short, and high/low using movement or words.
- With guidance, create a short sound pattern (e.g., shake–tap–shake) using instruments or found sounds.
- Use pictures, icons, or simple marks to show the order of their sound ideas.
- Participate in a brief group “sound piece” following a simple picture-score or teacher-created icon pattern.
Standards Alignment — Kindergarten Music (NAfME-Aligned)
- MU:Cr1.1.Kb — With guidance, generate musical ideas through movement, improvisation, or sound exploration.
- Example: Creating movements to match a short song.
- MU:Cr2.1.Ka — With guidance, organize personal musical ideas using iconic notation and/or recording technology.
- Example: Drawing symbols to represent loud and soft sounds.
Success Criteria — Student Language
- I can make different sounds by tapping, shaking, or scraping instruments and objects.
- I can tell or show when a sound is loud/soft or long/short.
- I can make a short sound pattern (like shake–tap–shake) with my instrument or object.
- I can use simple pictures or marks to show the order of my sounds.
- I can follow rules so everyone can explore sounds safely.