I have a house full of music-loving kids! Pumping up the music and breaking out a dance party is a regular occurrence in our kitchen! So I thought that a music lesson plan for kids would be so much fun! We will do music STEM projects, like discover how to “see” sound and why jars filled with different amounts of water “play” different notes when they are hit with a stick.
There is also an EPIC list of free apps to learn how to play all kinds of different instruments, including piano, guitar, bass and ukulele. Plus, we put together an excellent collection of free worksheets, songs and games all about music, to practice math, reading and writing. Plus, the most incredible DIY musical instrument crafts (using stuff you already have in your house!) to build instruments like bottle cap castanets, tin can bongo drums, popsicle stick harmonicas and shoe box guitars.
Music Making Apps For Kids
Here is an awesome list of our favorite music making apps for kids!
- For younger kids, especially toddlers, Sago Mini Box is a great way to explore sounds, tones and music.
- Amazon has a tons of free apps to learn about music and various instruments. Below are some fun options to learn how to play the piano, guitar or to create your own music!
- JoyTunes is a free app made up of the following three components. It is only available currently for Apple Devices and can be downloaded here.
- Piano Dust Buster is an introduction to piano for kids who have no experience yet with playing piano.
- Piano Maestro brings sheet music to life and teaches how to read music (from a single note, through to entire songs).
- Simply Piano is a step-by-step lesson plan to learn everything from playing piano with two hands to sight reading music.
- Bravura’s TuneTrain is Carnegie Mellon University’s free app that explores music for kids eight years old and up (available here).
- If you have an Apple device (iPhone, iPad, iPod, MacBook), then you definitely should checkout GarageBand here, if you have not yet! You can make your own band with a whole array of instruments to choose from (guitar, drums and percussion), as well as voice for singing.
- Yousician is a fun way to learn all kinds of instruments, including guitar, bass, piano, ukulele and singing. There is a free version here, as well as a premium version.
🧪 Music & Sound STEM Experiments for Kids
Did you know that you can see sound?! Watch this experiment that shows how to see sound (using sprinkles!), and then try it at home.
Now that you know how you can see sound, let’s explore some of the coolest things that sound waves can do!
The next musical jar experiment is a classic! Definitely save up some jars and let your kids try this music STEM experiment at home!
📚 Music Books for Kids
Learn some basics of music theory, treble and bass notes, and more with this free worksheet set.
- Kindergarten – 2nd Grades:
- A fantastic book for young music lovers is Welcome to the Symphony: A Musical Exploration of the Orchestra Using Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5
- Another great children’s book about a powerful symphony is Mo Willems Because. You can watch a read-aloud of this book below!
- 3rd – 5th Grades:
- Read about the benefits of listening to music while you study. Does music actually help reduce test anxiety and improve your performance? Read about it here!
- Checkout this scientific paper released by the University of British Columbia about if music students do better in school than their non-musical peers.
- Learn about some of the great musical talent throughout history in the following list of Britannica Kids articles.
✏ Free Music Writing Worksheets
- Kindergarten – 2nd Grade:
- Have you heard the song “Down by the Bay?” Complete this worksheet to write what you saw, down by the bay, and draw a picture as well.
- 3rd – 5th Grade:
- Analyze music to teach poetry with these free worksheets.
- Are you excited about music videos? Here is a fun worksheet that will walk you through analyzing a music video in writing!
- Learn about the rules for using commas with these free, printable magical musical posters.
- Practice your typing skills while playing songs with this GarageBand typing activity!
- “A big music producer heard through the grapevine that if he wants a cover of a song done, you’re the duo to do it.” Have your child work on this GarageBand Cover It project, which includes a writing opportunity.
🧮 Music Math Worksheets & Songs
- Kindergarten – 2nd Grades:
- Complete this musical note math worksheet to practice addition.
- Practice subtracting and regrouping with Mr. Fritts, the EdRocker, with this song.
- Work on base ten counting (and breaking numbers into cubes, rods and flats) using this musical chairs game.
- Practice place values (ones, tens and hundreds) with this music video.
- Learn this math song, which leads to mathematical marvelousness!
- Watch the following music video about addition!
- 3rd – 5th Grades:
- Practice fractions with this hip-hop music lesson.
- Watch the following music video to learn your multiplication facts.
🖌 8 DIY Musical Instrument Crafts
- Do you have plastic Easter eggs left from our Easter Lesson Plan? You can use them to make your own maracas, like this!
- Make this bongo drum set out of clean tin cans, balloons, rubber bands and chopsticks.
- If you have popsicle sticks laying around, you can turn them into harmonicas like this. Warning! Do not color the popsicle sticks, unless you don’t mind your child’s face and mouth turning into rainbow colors (yes, I know this from personal experience!)
- That bottle cap collection you are saving up might come in handy! You can use it to make bottle cap castanets here.
- Turn a shoe box into a guitar like this.
- Create this fringe musical anklet using felts, jingle bells and sequins.
- Use jar lids, rubber bands and popsicle sticks to make your own mini banjos here.
- I may have saved the best for last, because this is so cool!!! Learn how to make a pan flute out of drinking straws!
And the most fun part… share a photo or video of your music STEM experiments, your DIY music craft projects, or any of your other fun activities on Facebook! Make sure to include a link to this website or to our Facebook Group and Facebook Page, so that we can see it too! I’ve purposefully added a lot of options for parents who need to keep their kiddos occupied for more time and to allow you to cater to your children’s preferences.
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