Musicplay is an award-winning, sequential music curriculum designed for elementary schools. It follows the school calendar from August to June, providing structured, ready-to-use lesson plans for teachers. Each weekly lesson introduces new musical concepts, reinforces prior learning, and includes seasonal and holiday repertoire. All the planning is done for the teacher!
Key concepts are taught through play, with a new singing game featured each week in Grades 1–5. Children love music games and this will have your students really excited about learning music! Each song and game is carefully selected to teach musical principles, introduce children to cultures around the world, and provide performance-ready repertoire for special occasions. The most important factor in selecting songs for this series is that songs appeal to children!
Music specialists with training in Orff or Kodàly will find that Musicplay works well with either methodology or as an integrated approach using both. Music reading songs are not a separate unit at the end of the text. Music reading songs are integrated sequentially in every weekly lesson throughout the curriculum so that the students become literate musicians.
Musicplay supports and enhances science, social studies, and language arts curriculums. In Grade 1, songs to teach vowels and consonants are included. Poetry is included in Grades 2-5. Science concepts are taught as well and each grade includes songs about the environment.
Musicplay is a curriculum that can be used by a classroom teacher with limited
musical training. However, music specialists will appreciate the planning and sequencing that is done for them. Musicplay is used throughout Canada and the USA and in many international schools.
Musicplay Teacher Guides
The Musicplay Teacher's Guides contain detailed song suggestions for every song. Every song has a collection of song activities that cover the core arts standards (sing, move, play, create, read/write). Assessment suggestions are embedded in the song activities. The teacher guide's also include audio recordings with more than 100 musical selections per grade level. Children and adult voices are used, and there are many recordings licensed from popular children’s entertainers. Accompaniments include Orff arrangements, piano accompaniments and orchestrated accompaniments. Performance songs have both performance tracks and accompaniment tracks. Multicultural songs feature authentic performances in original languages and sung by natural speakers. Many of the multicultural songs are game songs that appeal to children although the language and sound may be unfamiliar.
Listening Resources
The Listening Resource Kits 1-5 provide the most comprehensive listening component of any music curriculum in North America. There are 24-40 examples per grade level. The reproducibles, maps, listening logs and activities are unique and will teach children to become perceptive listeners. Musicplay for Kindergarten and Musicplay for Middle School (Grade 6) include listening selections in the Teacher's Guide.
Student Books
The Musicplay student books were designed to look and feel like a band method book. The student books are 8.5x11 soft cover books. They are inexpensive and could be purchased by students. Each of the books is 60+ pages and contain all the songs (100+) that are in the Musicplay curriculum. Important concepts are highlighted and defined. Having the music in the child's hands is important if the teacher hopes to develop musicians who can read music. A full class set of student books is not always needed. Students can share one book between two students. In some cases sharing books helps the weaker readers to track the words. The Musicplay student books are a literacy resource offering excellent opportunities for shared reading!
Digital Resources
The Musicplay Digital Resources include PowerPoints, lyric/notation videos, and kids demos. The music is large and easy to read with embedded audio tracks. There are many advantages to using a PowerPoint presentation in the music classroom:
- easier for the teacher to show a PowerPoint than to hand out student textbooks to each child
- visually appealing to children, more engaging, easier to focus students' attention
- text highlights in short songs teach beginning reading in the same way that pocket chart reading activities do
- PowerPoints provide shared reading practice for all grades: Music notation and lyrics are included
- print space and cost does not limit the length or scope of the presentation - we’ve included more visuals in full color with full vocal scores and lyrics
- easily highlight concepts
- we've included links to websites to enhance learning. On a Smartboard, one click takes you to sites with tremendous interactive possibilities
Orff Arrangements
Eighty-nine Orff arrangements for Grades 1-5 are found in The Orff Source. Orff Source Volume 2 and 3 are also available.
Piano Arrangements
Our piano arrangements are exceptional. The arrangements are interesting, well-formatted, easy to use, easy to read, and very playable. Chord symbols are included and vocal parts are given on a separate staff. Piano accompaniments are available for single songs for use in contests or festivals, or for an entire grade level.
Ukulele and Guitar Arrangements
Guitar and Ukulele Arrangements for every Musicplay grade are a useful tool for performances and for classroom use. Chord charts are included for every song making it easy for a beginning ukulele or guitar player to accompany their students or for their students to play themselves. Many of the arrangements have alternate keys to make it even easier to play or sing along in the most appropriate keys for children’s voices.
MusicplayOnline
In 2015, Denise Gagne and her team built the online version of Musicplay. Everything that has been mentioned above is now online and available under one subscription. MusicplayOnline has grown to include units, rhythm practice, solfa practice, vocal warmups, instrument programs, and more! Check it out for yourself here.