Y4. Lesson 5. Practise la pentatonic scale
Prior learning: None
Duration: 30 minutes
Materials: Woodblocks or claves
Keywords: Beat, rhythm, singing, chanting, partners, rhymes, circle games.
Difficulty: 
Prepare
fa
Present
Practise
la pentatonic scale
Melodic development
Students are presented with the la pentatonic scale and find it in a song.
- Sing Land of the Silver Birch.
- Encourage students to actively participate by copying you on each phrase until they feel confident.
- The third phrase is a target for the la pentatonic scale.
- Students discover a scale of five pitches: low la, do re mi so, with a skip between low la, and do and a skip between mi and so.
- Demonstrate by singing the intervals between the notes of the la pentatonic scale.
- Ask students to sing the intervals between the tonic note and the other notes of the la pentatonic scale.
- If your teaching method includes hand signs, demonstrate and ask students to sing the la pentatonic scale with them.
Rhythmic development
Students discover how to write rests on the board and in their notebooks.
- Print the flashcards (and laminate for later use).
- Distribute all four to every student (or project them on the board for convenience).
- Teach that every note type, whether a semibreve, minim, crotchet or quaver, has a rest value equal to the number of beats.
- Traditional time names or rhythm syllables may be used.
- Teach that each rest value is marked differently so musicians know how long to remain silent in a piece of music.
- Use a tuned percussion instrument such as a glockenspiel and strike a bar to last exactly four beats.
- Ask students to hold up the correct card.
- Ask a volunteer how to show four beats of silence and to write the symbol on the board.
- Repeat the process with the other time values and equivalent rests.
- Ask students to copy each rest symbol in their notebooks.
Creative movement
Students sing and march to the beat as soldiers in this circle game.
- Lead the class singing the song as students march in a circle.
- Two students are chosen to be the 'chopper' as the circle marches underneath.
- On the word 'Boom', the chopper catches the student underneath.
- That student selects a partner and forms a new arch in the circle.
Listening
Students focus on a known song and investigate a new note.
- Lead the class in singing the song.
- To prepare fa, use the third and fourth measures as the target phrase.
- Ask the class to sing just the first four measures.
- Project the score, sing the notes and show a new note marked in red.
- Ask if this red note is a step or a skip below so [step].
- Ask students to sing the third and fourth measures.
- Ask students to raise their hands when they find the new note.
- Ask which word the new note is on [ - ther]
Students section
Visual learning
Students discover the difference between the do and la pentatonic scales.
- Project the first score.
- Ask students which scale it is by looking at the steps and skips of the notes [do pentatonic].
- Repeat with the other score [la pentatonic].
- Play the first track of the audio player and ask which scale they hear [do pentatonic].
- Repeat with the second track [la pentatonic].
Instruments
Students
Part work
Students sing a classic pentatonic song in canon.
- Divide the class into two or more groups.
- One group of students will sing the song in English (or French (depending on how you have taught the song).
- The second group will come in after one or two beats in canon.
- The video shows a real example of how this can sound!
Lyrics (French)
Frère Jacques
Frère Jacques
Dormez-vous?
Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines
Sonnez les matines
Ding-ding-dong
Ding-ding-dong
Assess
Students section
Suggested lessons
Y1. Beat II
Y1. Beat III
Y1. Beat IV