Music: Lower Key Stage 2

Lesson plans and teacher videos to instill confidence in your teaching of Music

Teacher skills videos

Composing and improvising skills LKS2
Singing LKS2
Pitches (all key stages)
Dynamics (all key stages)
Staff notation 6 - KS2 - Tuned percussion

Useful resources for teaching Music

Choose your topic

We make teaching music simple with engaging lessons based on popular themes, from animals and festivals to space and superheroes, all supported by teacher videos.

Year 3

Ballads

Children learn what ballads are, how to identify their features and how to convey different emotions when performing them. Using an animation as inspiration, children carefully select vocabulary to describe the story, before turning them into lyrics by incorporating rhyming words and following the structure of a traditional ballad.

Creating compositions in response to an animation (Theme: Mountains)

Learning to tell stories through music. Listening to music and considering the narrative it could represent. Paying close attention to the dynamics, pitch and tempo and how they change. Creating original compositions to match an animation, building up layers of texture.

Developing singing technique (Theme: the Vikings)

The children develop their singing technique. Learning to keep in time and work on musical notation and rhythm, the unit finishes with a group performance of a song with actions.

Pentatonic melodies and composition (Theme: Chinese New Year)

Revising key musical terminology, playing and creating pentatonic melodies, composing a piece of music using layered melodies.

Jazz

Learning about ragtime style music, traditional jazz and scat singing. Children create a jazz motif using a swung rhythm.

Traditional instruments and improvisation (Theme: India)

Children listen to a range of rag and tal music, identifying traditional instruments as well as creating their own improvisations and performing as a class.

Year 4

Body and tuned percussion (Theme: Rainforests)

A topic of discovery; children will explore the rainforest through music and be introduced to new musical terms. They will also use a mixture of body percussion and tuned percussion instruments as the children create their own rhythms of the rainforest, layer by layer.

Rock and Roll

Learning about the origin and features of rock and roll music, pupils learn how to play the Hand Jive and Rock Around the Clock, looking specifically at a walking bass line, before performing a piece as a class.

Changes in pitch, tempo and dynamics (Theme: Rivers)

Learning to listen to changes in pitch, tempo and dynamics and relate it to something tangible and familiar. Linking to their geography learning, the pupils represent different stages of the river through vocal and percussive ostinatos, culminating in a final group performance.

Haiku, music and performance (Theme: Hanami festival)

This Japanese inspired topic looks at the springtime festival of Hanami, which celebrates the fleeting beauty of spring flowers. Children use descriptive vocabulary to create a Haiku, put it to music and finally add percussion sound effects to bring all elements together before a final, group performance.

Samba and carnival sounds and instruments (Theme: South America)

Getting a feel for the music and culture of South America, children are introduced to samba and the sights and sounds of the carnival.

Adapting and transposing motifs (Theme: Romans)

Drawing upon their understanding of repeating patterns in music, pupils are introduced to the concept of motifs.

Sample lessons

Sample lessons 1
For copyright reasons, you may not screenshot this page.
Press esc to exit