Preschool Music and Active Movement: Moon & Space Theme

I'm teaching a preschool class this year that combines music and movement to teach basic music concepts like pitch and listening skills while letting our preschoolers sing, run, and play! 

I'm super excited to get started, and decided to share my lesson plans here in case anyone else wants some ideas for Music Time!

Each week I will be following a different theme.  The first theme will be the Moon & Space!

You can see more music lessons here!

Here is my plan...I'll post a brief update to let you know how it went!

Theme: Moon & Space

Gathering Activity: Play with musical instrument toys

Hello Song: On the first day we'll have name tags, and then we'll sing, "Hello *kid's name*, hello *kid's name*, hello *kid's name*, we're glad you're here today!" and then repeating that triplet enough times to welcome everyone to the tune of "Goodnight, Ladies."

Warm-up Song: When I Sing La, La, La by Janeen Brady with sock puppets. When we lived in Houston, my friend Ellie introduced this song and the idea of using puppets with it to me, and I love it so much! It teaches pitch, associating your mouth opening with singing nice full notes, fine motor exercise, and so much more! (Sidenote: Ellie used to teach elementary school, and I learned SO many things from her!) Emphasize opening your mouth really big like the puppet when you sing, lift the puppets high for high notes, and lower the puppets low near the floor for low notes.

Action Song: Rocketship Run by Laurie Berkner. Our preschoolers will fly around during the verses, then countdown, and "blast off" every time the countdown gets to "1!" Ellie introduced us to this one too, and it became a family favorite several years ago!

Instrument: Rhythm Sticks. We'll be doing this Mission Control copy game with rhythm sticks!

Coordination Song: Rockets on My Lap: Chant "Rockets on my lap, clap, clap; rockets on my lap, clap, clap; shake it to the left; shake it to the right; rockets back on my lap, clap, clap!"  We learned this sing-song chant with Ellie, but we sang it with scarves. We'll still be using scarves as props on our Moon Day, but we'll call them rockets. 😉

Instrument: Shaker Eggs: We're going to call the shaker eggs "moons" and talk briefly about the difference in a full moon and partial moons. Then we'll play "I Can Shake My Shaker Egg" by Mr. Eric and Mr. Michael, singing "shaker moon" instead of "shaker egg." We'll also walk in a circle while we sing this song and use actions suggested by the song (sneaking, walking, running, etc.).  

Theme Song: Planets! Planets! by Music With Nancy. I'm going to print these pictures of planets, pass them out to the kids, and let them show everyone their picture when it sings it. I might have to print two sets of the planets. 😉

Parachute Fun: We absolutely adore parachute games and songs, so I am going to have at 1-3 parachute songs and games every week. This week we will start with Zoom Zoom Zoom by Kiboomers. We'll open up the parachute and wave it during the verse, then during the chorus ("If you want to take a trip, climb aboard my rocket ship") the kids can climb into the middle of the parachute and the adults will wave it. Then they'll jump out for the next verse.

Moon Sharks: We used to play Sharks with Ellie by choosing one or two "sharks." Everyone else will sit with the parachute on their laps and their feet under the parachute. The sharks will crawl around under the parachute "catching" kids by touching their feet. Once they're "caught" the kids become a shark too! I know sharks don't actually live on the moon, but since this is a favorite game, we're going to play it with "moon sharks" anyway!

Walk Around (the Moon) by Music With Nancy: Everyone will hold one handle of the parachute and walk in a circle...or jump, or whatever the song suggests. ;)  We might not have time for this (since our Music Time will be 40 minutes), but if we do, I think it will be great!

Goodbye Song: I'm doing the same tune for this as the Hello Song, just singing "Goodbye *name*."  

On another note, (haha...did you see what I did there, lol!) if you're looking for a music curriculum that teaches all the music basics like pitch, rhythm, and even reading notes I have a program that I 100% recommend!  It is called Preschool Prodigies, and it is absolutely "open and go!" AND your kids learn a musical instrument (bells) through the program! We are actually using this as well, and ALL my kids LOVE it (this includes my preschoolers, elementary kiddos, and my middleschooler)!! They have the following curricula available on their streaming videos preschool (learning bells), recorder, ukulele, performance, and more!! I am super excited about this program and am sharing it with everyone I know! I simply have not seen any other system as fun and effective for teaching music. But you can decide for yourself...here's my affiliate link to learn more! They even have a sale going right now that you will want to check out asap!

I hope all of this is helpful for you! Let me know if you use any of it in your Music Time!!


UPDATE: I taught this class last week, and we had a great time! I didn't have time to pull out the scarves, but we did everything else and ended right on schedule! They worked great!

Happy Educating,

Carla

Have you seen HEEP? It is a preschool homeschool curriculum! Learn more here!

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