Kinard Middle School Sixth Grade Choir Lesson Plan 12/1/21: Rhythm - Matthew Tabor

Setting: I will be teaching about twenty sixth graders in Scott Wheeler’s choir class at Kinard

Middle School. The kids seem to each be individually very interested in music, but have had

over a year of inhibited musical learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in exchange,

they have a far more fluent in technology than kids their age typically have had. These students

all have school-issued laptops that they are to bring to class every day for assignments.

Rationale: Rhythm is so vitally important to the application of music. This specific lesson is

geared to engage students in order to increase the innateness of sight reading rhythm (Colorado

Standard Standard 1. Expression of Music). This will increase their ability to lock in a musical

piece early. Once that lock has been achieved, the music can be shaped much more dynamically,

and the students' mastery over the rhythm will make a higher level of artistry relatively simple.

Standards:

Colorado:

MUSIC Sixth Grade/Novice, Standard 1. Expression of Music

Prepared Graduates: 1. Apply knowledge and skills through a variety of means to

demonstrate musical concepts.

Grade Level Expectation: 1. Perform pieces of music, making interpretive and expressive

choices.

Evidence Outcomes Students Can: a. Perform music rhythmically correct at .5-1 level on

the difficulty rating scale. (See levels .5-1 in Music Skills Appendix) b. Perform music with

correct pitches and intonation at .5-1 level on the difficulty rating scale. (See levels .5-1 in Music

Skills Appendix) c. Perform music with expressive qualities. (See levels .5-1 in Music Skills

Appendix)
 MUSIC Sixth Grade/Novice, Standard 3. Theory of Music

Prepared Graduates: 5. Read, write, and analyze the elements of music through a variety

of means to demonstrate musical literacy.

Grade Level Expectation: 1. Read, notate, and identify musical symbols by name or

function for rhythm, pitch, articulation, and dynamics.

Evidence Outcomes Students Can: a. Identify by name or function, and notate musical

symbols. (See level 1 in Music Skills Appendix) b. Sight-read, observing all musical symbols,

tempo indications, expressive indications, and technical indications. (See level .5 in the Music

Skills Appendix) c. Notate melodic and/or rhythmic patterns of two to four measures. (See levels

.5-1 in the Music Skills Appendix)

Objectives: Students will be able to sight read 2-bar rhythmic concepts using beamed eighth

notes. Students will be able to sight read phrases that include beamed eighth notes using the

tah-tee-tee method from their elementary school years, but then also read the same passage using

rhythmic counting. Students will be able to begin to incorporate sixteenth notes into their sight

reading.

Materials:

● rhythmrandomizer.com

○ Link to first setup:

https://www.rhythmrandomizer.com?s=22208084020001020506

○ Link to second setup:

https://www.rhythmrandomizer.com?s=2120808402000102050607

● Scratch paper or a basic worksheet to grade other students sixteenth notes

○ Google Classroom will be used instead for this lesson

 ● Teacher’s laptop with which to pull up rhythmrandomizer.com

● Students’ laptops

● Internet connection for students

○ I will be using my personal hotspot if I need the internet

● Class study guide (lavender sheet, “6th Grade Study Guide”)

● Various non-candy rewards (bookmarks, pencils and pens, erasers, possibly stickers)

○ Parents may not want their kids eating sweets, or may have set specific dietary

restrictions on their kids. Additionally, walking around the school with candy may

not be allowed. I had considered giving students nickels/dimes/quarters as a

reward, but I’m not sure entirely what is allowed.

Anticipatory Set: (About 2 Minutes)

After introducing yourself to the students (Mr. Tabor/substitute) ask the class what their favorite

rhythm note is from their study guide. Ask them if they think they can fill a measure with

nothing but that rhythm. Ask them if they think they can do it while using rhythmic counting. Do

a quick example if they seem confused ( 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ) or ( 1 2 3 4 ) or ( 1 3 ) or even if

they’re crazy ( 1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a ). Go through it once as a class, and when it

invariably sounds like a jumbled mess, smile and go ‘Great job everyone!’ and move on to the

lesson.

Procedure:

● Ask students to pull out their laptops and go to the website rhythmrandomizer.com,

which will ideally be included on a Google Classroom assignment

■ If provided with a whiteboard write it up there, if not quickly walk up and

down to check their computers to see if they’ve got it written in

○ Students will go on Google Classroom and click on the first rhythm randomizer

link that includes the prepared settings

● If they are unable to get the settings link from Google Classroom,

tell students to adjust their settings to disable sixteenth notes, half

rests, and whole rests.

■ Tell students to prepare to record themselves with their computer as they

work through these.

■ Ask students to press randomize and get three rhythms they will hit

record. Students will have five minutes to finish recording.

● First they will speak the rhythm using the ‘tah tee-tee’ method

from elementary school.

● After this they will then speak the same rhythm using the standard

rhythm counting of 1 + 2 e + a 3 4 method

● They will do this two more times for a total of three rhythms

● Then they will submit this recording online to the Google

Classroom.

● After confirming their submission, they may take their pick of one

of the rewards described in the Materials section

○ Students will then go back to Google Classroom and click on the second rhythm

randomizer link

● If unable to change their settings, students will now switch their

settings to include sixteenth notes and be only one measure.

■ Ask students about their familiarity with sixteenth note counting syllables.
 ● If they are unfamiliar with ‘1 ee and uh’ then spend a minute or

two counting and speaking sixteenth notes for them to hear. Switch

between quarters, eighths and sixteenths slowly so that they may

understand aurally how it works.

● Tell students they are welcome to reduce the tempo a lot and use

the playback feature to help hear the rhythm.

■ Students will find a partner (or a group of three) who will listen and

observe them as they sight read the one-bar rhythm. Their partners will

then grade them using scratch paper provided simply on a scale of 1-10.

Students may share their ratings with the sight-reader, but may not. These

grades will then be handed in to me.

● Students will write their grades for each other online in the written

portion of the Google Classroom assignment.

■ Students will then work through speaking three random rhythm excerpts

and will have another five minutes to complete this.

■ This time students will only be using rhythmic counting.

■ When they are done, students may take a second item. No proof of

proficiency is required, the point of the exercise is to expose them to the

concepts and work towards mastery. Buying a class-full of items is

expensive. I have 96 items. If everybody showed up to class both today

and Thursday, totaling 82 students, everyone would be able to take an item

both days.
● Students will then be divided into five groups of four (or five, as the class split will be

either 20 or 21. If some students are absent then groups of three is fine as well).

○ Students will use the one bar sixteenth note measures to build a rhythm pattern.

■ Alternatively they are permitted to make their own.

○ One student will start and say their rhythm

○ The next student will say the first students rhythm and add on their own rhythm

○ The third student will say the first student’s rhythm and then the second student’s

rhythm, they will then add on their third.

○ The fourth will continue the pattern.

○ Once the group has gone around, the person who starts will shift to whoever went

last last time, and this time the group will use a second rhythm. If the group did

not save their rhythm and wishes to have thirty seconds to randomize again and

learn the new one, that is acceptable.

○ If there is time, the group will then do a final rotation and cycle again. One

student will not get the opportunity to go first or last, so if there is time for a

fourth rotation for a group of four, then that’s also fine.

○ This should take in total no more than five minutes.

● In the event that there is still a large amount of time left in class, we will play a small

game of telephone using a two-bar rhythm. We will make a circle and I will start a rhythm

at the beginning and it will go all the way around until the end and I can evaluate the

classes’ accuracy. This will hopefully increase their rhythmic accuracy and consistency,

but honestly it's mostly here so that I don’t have to say “Alright kids, I’m out of things to

do, so just kind of talk for five minutes till Mr. Wheeler is ready to start up again.”
Assessment: Students will sight read 2-bar rhythmic concepts using beamed eighth notes.

Students will also be read these phrases using the tah-tee-tee method but also rhythmic counting.

All of this will be featured in a video that the student will upload to Google Classroom. Students

will be graded by their peers on their ability to incorporate sixteenth notes into their sight

reading.

Closure: (About 2 Minutes)

Summarize what we accomplished today with our objectives:

We sight read 2-bar rhythms…

Using tah-tee-tee

Using rhythmic counting

With beamed eighth notes

With beamed sixteenth notes

We even graded our classmates

Ask students how they feel they did, if there’s still a bit of time we could spend a little bit of it

going through the students’ thoughts.

If we were continuing our lesson, we would then more heavily incorporate sixteenth

notes into our lesson, and continue to increase the length of each sight-reading exercise. Remind

the kids that they can keep using rhythmrandomizer at home and, if they wish, can experiment

with even trickier rhythmic patterns like different time signatures and triplets and sixteenth notes

combined with eighth notes.

Hope you all enjoyed! It was great to work with you all today! I’ll now hand you all back

to Mr. Wheeler.