3rd Grade Music Composition Activities

Word search activities offer many benefits for students. They can help students learn new vocabulary, improve spelling skills, and develop problem-solving abilities. These word search activities are great for reviewing musical concepts in a fun and challenging way! Word search activities also make engaging brain breaks and bell-ringers.

One composer. Ten words. Three styles. Pick & print your favorite! Use a timer for a race through musical history or as an independent activity.

♫ "Study Bach. There you will find everything." - Johannes Brahms ♫

More Johann S. Bach Resources!

Johann S. Bach Bundle

Johann S. Bach Music Note Matching

"Adagio" Listening Sheets

Bach Fun Pack!

"Little Fugue" Listening Sheets

Bach Composer Pack

Bach Composer Activity Pack (Pre-K+)

Bach Family Bundle

Brandenburg Concertos Listening Sheets

► We know you'll love helping students create meaningful connections to classical music, so we are happy to share these free listening activities with you today!

The NFL season is BACK! Your older grade level kids will love RED ZONE

RHYTHMS!

Students will see an NFL team and their corresponding mascot and the students will have to spell out the team and mascot combo with that's right... RHYTHM!

The students will have to decipher the rhythmic syllables using triplets, eighth note pairs, and quarter notes. The rhythm will be shown on the animation on the next slide.

• You can either have the students notate it out on whiteboards...
• make rhythm cards or tiles
• have them write it on the board
• make it a race between A team vs B team to spell it out
• or however you can imagine!

There are 14 teams with 14 unique rhythms that the students will have to decipher. Here comes the kickoff!

Word search activities offer many benefits for students. They can help students learn new vocabulary, improve spelling skills, and develop problem-solving abilities. These word search activities are great for reviewing musical concepts in a fun and challenging way! Word search activities also make engaging brain breaks and bell-ringers.

Fourteen terms related to string instruments are hidden within this word search! There is one puzzle included with four color variations, including an ink-friendly grey scale design. Choose your favorite! Answer key provided.

► It can be hard to keep track of all the dates and eras in classical music history, so we created this freebie to help you out! Grab this six-page guide of composers sorted by musical period. Birthdates, birthplaces, and their famous compositions included. Get this instant download delivered right to your inbox!

Getting your students to improve on rhythm and melody can't be any easier with "Boom and Response"!

In this resource, there are 3 tracks totally 5 minutes that you can play for your students (and repeat if necessary). Each track is a specific amount of beats for the "Call" (4 beats, 6 beats, or 8 beats) with the same amount of empty beats that follow directly after -- and thats where you students submit their "Response"

You can utilize this in one of several ways:

1. Assign boomwhackers to your students and have them play the response (any mixture of rhythms and beats) back to you directly after they hear the call
2. Individually listen to each student as they compose their OWN response after they hear the call
3. Assign TWO boomwhackers per student and have them play a melodic response to the "Call" they heard
4. Separate kids into chordal groups for Boomwhackers (C Major, F Major, G Major, etc) and have each chord take turns during a response (C Major goes first... then F Major can go next, G Major next, and so forth)
5. Ask them to utilize dynamics (piano and forte, crescendo and diminuendo, throughout their response) on their Boomwhackers

Or any other crazy way you may think!

Have a great time with this!

Word search activities offer many benefits for students. They can help students learn new vocabulary, improve spelling skills, and develop problem-solving abilities. These word search activities are great for reviewing musical concepts in a fun and challenging way! Word search activities also make engaging brain breaks and bell-ringers.

Fifteen musical terms are hidden within! Clef, sequence, theme, note, key, and more. There is one puzzle included with four color variations, including an ink-friendly greyscale design. Choose your favorite! Answer key provided.

► It can be hard to keep track of all the dates and eras in classical music history, so we created this freebie to help you out! Grab this six-page guide of composers sorted by musical period. Birthdates, birthplaces, and their famous compositions included. Get this instant download delivered right to your inbox!

Not ready for instruments but want to involve your students in some body percussion (while still assessing their reading and performing skills?). Try out "Poison Percussion" the ever-popular Poison Pattern game for body percussion!

This takes students through 63 slides and 3 levels of body percussion (clap, snap, stomp, and pat) sight reading.

Students will play a variety of rhythms as the teacher scrolls through the slides. Each slide contains one rhythm they will play and after advancing to the next slide, you can elect to give them a 4 beat or 2 beat prep to read the next rhythm, whichever works for you. The less prep they have, the better because...

There will be one rhythm (the poison rhythm, poison pattern, or OOPS! rhythm as we'll call it) that students DO NOT play! If they do, they're out of the game.

Students learn the rhythm before the round is played. Be careful or you will be ELIMINATED!

You can play this in teams, As vs Bs, however you wish!

There are 5 background grooves that go from 80 bpm to 120 bpm to challenge your kids as they go through the levels. There are 4 beat rhythms with quarter, eighth note pairs, and quarter note rests

Have a great time with this!

A game that will keep your students entertained, engaged, and competitively charged with identifying chord quality, here's One "Minor" Imposter inspired by "Among Us"!

___________________________________

IN ONE MINOR IMPOSTER, YOU WILL LISTEN TO 2, 3, 4 EVEN 5 CREWMATES PLAY MAJOR CHORDS ONE BY ONE. ONE OF THE MAJOR CHORDS IS ACTUALLY NOT THE MAJOR CHORD PERFORMED!

YOUR TASK IS TO DECIDE WHICH CREWMATE IS THE IMPOSTER BY SELECTING THE CREWMATE WHO PLAYED THE MINOR CHORD INSTEAD OF THE MAJOR CHORD

HERE WILL BE ONLY ONE CREWMATE WHO IS THE IMPOSTER

____________________________

In each example is a piano/guitar/harpsichord mix with different background percussion tempos to keep the kids engaged. Each crewmate, lined up on the powerpoint (1, 2, 3, etc) will be representative of the musical example played.

Included in this resource are

• Mp3 examples embedded in each question (15 questions)
• A printout where you can replicate and cut out cards (if you want the students to place on the floor or hold up to show which one was the imposter)
• 3 levels of rhythms with 3 crewmates (2 major crewmates, 1 minor imposter), 4 crewmates (3 major crewmates, 1 minor imposter), and 5 crewmates (4 major crewmates, 1 imposter)

Have a terrific time with this while your kids study chord quality!

The follow-up to "Rhythm Wind Up and PITCH!"
______________________________________

This one will get the kids on their edge of their seats!

You will need 1 thing for this particular game:

• A sticky suction cup ball (or maybe a soft squishy ball)

The students will see a melody at the bottom of their screen and memorize the melodic direction or say it back in their head (just make sure the melodic is not sung out loud). They will then hear a musical example of an endless loop of melodic figures separated by 4 beats each in between rhythms. (Teacher will click the speaker icon to play)

Take a listen...

....

....

One of the melodic figures will be the melody that is on the screen. AS SOON AS THEY HEAR THAT MELODY, they throw their suction cup ball at the target. The first kid who gets it correct is the winner (and make sure you advance the slide to make the target turn green) :)

Obviously, we cannot play this as a class because of

1. The amount of suction cup balls tossed at the screen would be insane

2. Team A v Team B would be a bit more competitive and only two balls would be launched at once

If you don't have a whiteboard/projection screen, you can alternatively have the students raise their hand when they hear it and choose the kid who has their hand up the fastest.

Have a great time with this fast paced game!

Understanding notation duration and how they fit mathematically into bars of music is one of the fundamental learning goals of upper elementary students!

With Measure Up! Students will see a measure of music… but… it is incomplete! They will then Choose the correct notation from one of the boxes to complete the measure. Students can use the powerpoint in design mode to click and drag it, draw a path for their specific box to the open box, or write it in!

Can also be used for Distance Learning as well!

15 examples with quarter notes and rests, half notes and rests, whole notes and rests, eighth notes and rests, 4 sixteenth notes and 2/4, 3/4, 5/4, 4/4, and a bonus 6/8 example at the end!

The ultimate Boys vs Girls competition! If you're working on notes of the treble clef staff, this is a fun way for kids to competitively spell them out. First, we made a boys side (on the left of the screen) and girls side on the (on the right). A word will appear and the students have 10 seconds to spell the word out (there is a timer attached to the powerpoint and it will count down as soon as the slide appears). This games works best on a whiteboard that has magnetic backing as I print out notes and have the kids race as fast as they can to put them on. After the kids lock in their answer, the next slide reveals the notes. For notes that have F's and E's, the answer key has both top line, top space notes -- those F's and E's both count! :) Some are easy (CAB, DAB, DAD), some get a little tricky (BECCA, CABBAGE, DECADE) and so on. Towards the end they repeat, and feel free to edit and make your own! Have fun with this and if you have any questions, let me know!

Based off the hit Windows 3.11 game we all knew and loved, Rhythm Sweeper is a progressive game where one slip can end you up on the dreaded mine! This will have your kids reading and mastering rhythms in NO TIME! Students will see a grid of 40 squares on the home page. Each square contains either a link to a rhythm.... or a mine :) I select one student at a time to pick a number. I'll then click on the number and it'll advance to the designated slide. If it's a rhythm, we add that rhythm to the Building Board on the home page. The teacher will click "Back to Game and Building Board" and put the rhythm they just received on the board. As for the rhythms they earned, you can cut out rhythms, write them in dry erase, or have a student keep tabs on the side. Students will now say, sing, or play the rhythm back. Then we repeat! See how it gets progressive? ;) ...until the mine! There are 5 mines in each game, and once the mine is hit, it's GAME OVER! At the end, you can tally up how many beats the class amassed (which is great if you can allow student to add it up as the game has half, quarter, and pairs of eighth notes). Compete against other classes, or themselves! There are 10 files in the pack and each one is completely different (all the rhythms are mixed up and of course, so are the mines) Have fun with this! I keep lively music in the background and have the kids on lummi sticks to play the rhythms back. Let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment!

Getting ready to teach your kids about intervals? Try a fun new flash card game named Inspector Interval! In this powerpoint is a brief overview of intervals. Step by step instructions are given on how they are built, and more importantly, how they are identified. Throughout this powerpoint, there are over 100 random flash cards with intervals on a treble clef staff with an accompanying blank box. I usually have my students compete against each other (boys vs girls, top risers vs bottom risers, etc) to see who can name the interval the fastest. The winner stays up and competes against the next student in class and the one left standing at the end is deemed the winner! Included are two powerpoint files: Inspector Interval 2nd-7th: Only with 2nd thorugh 7th intervals Inspector Interval Unison-Octave: Full intervals (with descriptions for Unison and Octave intervals, and how to identify them) All the slides have animations attached them and should work on Microsoft Powerpoint 2007 and above. In addition, the "jazztext" font is included (with installation directions) as your system may not have the file already on it. Have a great time with this, kids get SUPER competitive! :)

If you're working on meter in your classroom, here's an engaging lesson that'll test your students' math skills! In Sign of the Times, we do a brief introduction of meter (from there on called" Time Signature"). After the introduction, we talk about how measures (musical sentences) are formed and how composers have the freedom to write different beat patterns in music. The lesson in PDF format (also included is the video along with an editable powerpoint file) continues with illustrations of 4 types of time signatures, and gets into the game format -- a measure with combinations of quarter, eighths, whole, and half notes will appear in the staff and students will have to guess the time signature. On the next slide, the answer will appear. I like to do this boys vs. girls -- they have to use their quick thinking to add up the beats! Some are easy to moderate, but as we progress it gets a little harder! If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment... that's the sign of the times!

This is a great resource to get your kids to work collaboratively as a team (or by themselves if you wish) to identify rhythms as they hear them!

In BlockChain Rhythm, students are given a set of 4 cubes with quarter notes, eighth note pairs, and quarter rests written on them (this is optional, but if you have these, it makes it a challenge for them if you have time to write them out!).

After hearing the rhythm example, they must "rubix cube style" arrange the rhythm that they heard in the right order that it is played. However, the first one to do it the fastest WINS!

Alternatively, you could play this by having the students write it down, have notation cards, or any other method you prescribe. Students can work together in teams of 1, 2, 4, or however may you wish.

To do it as a race: if you have a large and elongated classroom, try setting the blocks 10-15 feet away from the students. Students then have to run one by one and build each beat, go back and tag the next student, and build the second beat, and on and so forth until all four beats are completed.

There are 12 4-beat rhythm examples included in this. All you need to do is play the example and advance the powerpoint slide to show the correct answer!

Have a great time with this!

Down, Set, HUT!

In Bar Line Blitz, student will see a meter with several beats of music – except the bar lines are missing to separate the measures from each other!

They will will see 2 or more line placeholders (small grey lines) in between notes. One of the placeholders is where the bar line should go… but which one is it?

Identify where the bar line should be placed and the correct area will illuminate
green if it is accurate!

Play team vs team, A vs B, or individually... and enhance it by playing some fun football music in the background (search NFL themes or college football fight songs on YouTube) ;)

There are 4 levels (4 quarters if you wish) of varying difficulties. The last quarter, they students will need to identify where it should be placed without any small grey lined hashmarks

Have a great time with this one!

Are you as hungry as I am? Let's eat! Identify rhythms in proper nouns with this fun activity. Students will see a food (or foods!) and their corresponding word (or words!) and given two plates on each slide. Have the students identify the syllables in the food and match it to either rhythm on plate number 1 or plate number 2. After kids lock in their answer, advance the slide and reveal the answer! Most are eighth and quarter note rhythms, but some have eighth note triplets and 4 sixteenths group in the examples You can also play it as an assessment and have kids work individual or in teams. There's a powerpoint and PDF included in this package and there are 13 sets of foods go through and can last up to 30-45 minutes depending on what pace you go in the activity. Have a great time and of course, BON APPETITE!

Looking to get back into the swing of things or begin with simple percussion techniques? Try out some of our BODY Percussion in the VARIETYPack, 7 full resources full of warmups, techniques, and songs as well!

Included are

• Body Jam 16 - Sight Reading Body Percussion with multi layered sections great for splitting A, B, C, and D groups
• Body Percussion Warmups - multiple slides of warmups to get your kids started off right
• ABC, The Jackson Five (Body Percussion Arrangement)
• Believer, Imagine Dragons (Body Percussion Arrangement)
• Dynamite, BTS (Body Percussion Arrangement)
• Uptown Funk, Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars (Body Percussion Arrangement)
• Thunder, Imagine Dragons (Body Percussion Arrangement)

The smell of fall is in the air and that can only mean one thing -- COLLEGE FOOTBALL! Identify rhythms in proper nouns with this fun activity. Students will see a college football team and their corresponding mascot and given a set of blank beats that go with their team. Have the students identify the syllables in the team name and match it to rhythm! Most are eighth and quarter note rhythms, but some have eighth note triplets in there. For a competitive activity, I have kids all have a bag of cards and lay them on the floor and have tap lights for when they are ready to answer. I typically give 7 points for a touchdown if the kids get it correct before anyone else -- or you can award the first three kids who get it right, or however you wish. You can also play it as an assessment and have kids work individual or in teams There's a powerpoint and PDF included in this package. You have 20 teams to go through and can last up to 30-45 minutes depending on what pace you go in the activity. Have a great time and GO.... anyone know which my team is? ;)

Mastering the “Call and Response” technique just got a bit more automonous! Sit back and let the music be freely created with “Call it the Response” for Orff Instruments!

In this lesson, student swill hear a “Call” which is the first part of a musical phrase. They will then play a “response” which completes the short musical phrase. Their response may be a certain number of beats or maybe a certain rhythm (could be same or different than the call)

There are 8 different exercises for your kids to give their response on Orff Instruments (or even auxiliary percussion instruments or boomwhackers, the possibilities are endless!).

Each exercise has a percussive backing track with the "Call" built in (played by marimba and xylophone, so you as the teacher aren't responsible for making it up yourself!) and varies in tempo from 100bpm to 110bpm and covers V7, Pentatonic, IV chords, and bourdon notes.

Get creative with “Call it the Response!”

Chord quality galore! Help your kids understand to identify Major and Minor chords in "Major Problem, Minor Adjustment"!

Students will hear 3 to 4 chords back-to-back and have to select the chord (represented by a box from left to right) they think is "minor" or "major" as indicated by the slide

Advance the slide to discover the answer!

There are 8 questions and answers in this series