Study Unit 5: Lesson Planning

I had so much fun in the past week while working in groups to complete our assignment and every time I go through LSKM I learn new things about music that I never knew.

LSKM taught me the most important and valuable things to keep in mind when you plan a music lesson for your Foundation Phase students, a few of these important aspects are, put as many chances as possible for the learners to take part in as many music activities to help the learners listen better to the music, move to the beat, and create music while doing the lesson.

Teachers can create new and creative ways to teach learners new games and skills to help them perform at their best abilities and complete the lesson that was given to them. While the learners are completing their music activities, they learn different skills that will help them in their future, a few skills are improvising when they find a problem and find new ways to solve the problem, or just have to adapt to new things, and this skill will help them. Another skill the learners develop is examination, learners learn to examine the problems and then find a solution to solve the problems.

A few things to keep in mind while planning a music lesson, make sure to always add music to your lessons, you cannot let the learners only listen to what music is about and expect them to learn how music works and feels without letting them listen to music. The music that learners will listen to while completing the music activities should always have a lesson in them and that lesson should contribute to the aims in with the teacher wants the learners to learn in the lesson, for example, the ABC song is about the alphabet and the song teaches the learners about the alphabet.

Create new games and ideas for the learners to always guide them to listen to the music that is playing, for example, while the teachers want to teach the learners about their body, the music can be about their ears and hands etc. and the teacher can guide them to show that you should listen with your ears to the music. The teacher should always find new ways to get the learners attention by thinking of new and fun ways to do different activities and to start a new lesson. Teachers should help the learners to have fun in all of their lesson activities, by letting the learners to have fun, will help the learners learn the work faster and let the learners understand the work better.

Another way for teachers to motivate the learners to learn different activities is to give the learners a game related to the lesson and let the learners try to figure out what they should do in the game, the teacher should restrain themselves from helping the learners and explaining to work to the learners, before they had time to solve the problems themselves. After a certain amount of time the teacher can ask the learners what they should have done in the game and let the learners explain what they understood form the game. This way the learners will learn to solve problems by themselves and to see if they can work by themselves.

My opinion about the value of utilising arts integration in the Foundation Phase lessons is that it will help the learners feel more encouraged to take healthy risks, it can help the learners to recognize new skills that they did not know they had. Arts integration will also help the learners to develop their creative side, they learn to find new ways to solve problems, and it will help them to develop their motor skills and so much more.

Yes, my perception and priorities of music lesson planning has change a lot, I never knew that music is so important for the learners to develop the necessary skills needed to find new ways to solve problems, to help them perform better in school and to blossom in their social life and learn to take healthy risks to find the person they should be and becoming the best version of themselves.