Music

About this course

First grade music covers a surprising amount of ground for a light subject. Your student learns to feel a steady beat and tell it apart from rhythm, meets tempo, note lengths, 4/4 and 3/4 time, and claps the rhythms hidden in ordinary words. From there the course turns to pitch: the five-line staff, the treble clef, the Do-Re-Mi scale with solfege hand signs, and the shape a melody makes as it rises and falls. A singing unit teaches posture, deep belly breathing, matching pitch, echo and unison singing, and works through "Jesus Loves Me" and "This Is My Father's World" along with scripture songs. Two more units cover the four instrument families, the piano keyboard and Middle C, xylophones and glockenspiels, the instruments named in Psalm 150, and the history of music from ancient bone flutes and King David's harp through Gregorian chant, folk songs, and the story of John Newton writing "Amazing Grace." A theory unit closes it out with the musical alphabet, noteheads, rests, and the Italian dynamic markings.

There are 72 lessons in eight units of nine. Be aware that units 7 and 8 repeat units 1 and 2 word for word as a second pass, so there are 54 distinct lessons and eighteen of them come around twice. A lesson runs about 20 minutes: a short reading of three plain paragraphs, an at-home activity in the middle (clap this pattern, draw a staff, make a shaker from dried beans in a container, find every C on a keyboard), and a ten-question quiz that grades itself. Every lesson carries a KJV verse -- usually Psalm 150:6 or Psalm 33:3 -- and the standing assignment is to sing the day's song to someone in the family.

On the practical questions parents ask first: no instrument is required. The course is written so a family with nothing but their hands and a sheet of paper can do all of it, though a piano or keyboard makes the theory lessons easier to picture, and several activities use household items as percussion. The course is also entirely text-based -- there are no audio recordings or play-along tracks. When a lesson says to listen to a fast song and a slow one, or to hear what a violin sounds like, you supply the music. A first grader will need you reading alongside them and doing the clapping and singing together; this is not a subject to hand off and walk away from.

What the course covers

• Steady beat, tempo, and rhythm patterns
• Note values, rests, and 4/4 and 3/4 time
• High and low pitch and the shape of a melody
• The staff, treble clef, and noteheads
• Do-Re-Mi solfege and hand signs
• Singing posture, breathing, and matching pitch
• Hymns, scripture songs, and singing as worship
• The four instrument families and the piano keyboard
• Music in the Bible: David, the Psalms, and ancient instruments
• Music history from bone flutes to Gregorian chant and folk song

What your student will be able to do

• Keep a steady beat and clap simple rhythm patterns from memory
• Tell beat from rhythm and fast from slow
• Name the lines of the staff, the treble clef, and the seven note letters
• Sing the Do-Re-Mi scale with hand signs and match a pitch sung by someone else
• Sort instruments into strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion
• Find Middle C and the white-key note names on a keyboard

Scope and sequence

All 8 units of Music for Grade 1, in the order they are taught.

Every lesson, by title

All 72 lesson titles are listed here — nothing is withheld until you download. Open a unit to read its contents.

One whole lesson, exactly as it comes

This is a real lesson taken from the middle of the course — the teaching text, the practice, the homework, and the first three quiz questions with their answers. It is not a marketing excerpt.

What you will need

Drawn from the materials named across all 72 lessons of this course. Most families already own most of it.