Pitched or Unpitched? That is the question.

I am not sure how many of you guys have to do Marzano stuff in your teaching, but our district is HUGE on it. One of the areas where I really have never felt I had a good lesson was Domain 4 (Generating and Testing a Hypothesis). Until now! I love this lesson (and the kids do too). My kids have struggled like crazy with the idea of pitched and unpitched percussion. So I decided I needed to take a more hands on approach. Less talking, more doing!!

So I split my kids up into small groups and set each group up at a different center with an instrument, a card and a pencil.

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Each card had the instrument name, and then had the words Pitched and Unpitched. Students first make a guess about what they instrument will be (pitched or unpitched), based on how it looks. Then they test it out. I have a gong and I use that as the cue of when to start and stop playing the instrument at their center. Once they have tested it out, they vote … pitched or unpitched.

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Then we go over the answers and discuss why each one is pitched/unpitched. The LOOOVE getting to play the instruments and experiment with them. Is it is a little noisy and chaotic? Yeah, but not that bad, since I set up the procedures of when to play and stop beforehand. It’s a quick, fun activity for some hands on learning!

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Hi, I'm Erin!

I am an elementary music teacher, blogger and mom on a mission to make teaching and lesson planning easier for you. When I’m not working, you can find me at home enjoying life with my husband, daughter and two cats.

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