Music

About this course

Fifth grade is the largest music year in the curriculum -- 100 lessons in ten units of ten, where every other grade runs 72 or fewer. It is also the year the theory gets genuinely rigorous. Your student works through key signatures, major and minor scales, intervals named by number and by quality (perfect fifths, major and minor thirds), and how chords are built by stacking them. The notation unit adds the bass clef alongside the treble, dotted notes, ties and slurs, rhythm dictation by ear, and writing melodies down. A vocal unit covers posture and breath, warm-ups, singing in tune, part singing, rounds and canons, hymns, spiritual songs, and choir blend.

From there the course widens considerably. Instrument study covers the orchestral families plus band and world instruments. Two history units run from Bach and Handel through Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin, then into American music, gospel and spirituals, and the great hymn writers -- Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, and Fanny Crosby. A world music unit surveys folk traditions in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Celtic lands, and Native American nations, each handled respectfully and each closing with a scriptural reflection on why every people group makes music. A composition unit teaches call and response, theme and variation, rondo, and binary and ternary form, and asks your student to write a song. A technology unit is a real surprise for a fifth-grade music course: the phonograph through digital recording, MIDI, streaming services and how artists are paid, audio production, and a plain discussion of using it all wisely. The year closes with a unit on music and faith -- singing in both testaments, the purpose of worship music, the Psalms as the church's oldest hymnody, and music as prayer.

A lesson takes about 25 minutes and is written in clear headed sections with occasional tables, followed by a ten-question quiz that grades itself. It is more reading than most fifth graders expect from a music class, and a student who has not had earlier grades here will want to take the theory units slowly. No instrument is required, though a piano or keyboard is a real help with intervals, scales, and chords. The course contains no audio and only a handful of images -- when a lesson describes what a perfect fifth sounds like or what a Native American flute sounds like, you will need to find a recording. The listening is worth doing; the course does not do it for you.

What the course covers

• Key signatures, major and minor scales, intervals, and chords
• Reading both treble and bass clef
• Rhythm dictation and writing melodies down
• Vocal technique, part singing, rounds, and choir blend
• Orchestral, band, and world instruments
• Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin
• Hymn writers: Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, and Fanny Crosby
• World and folk music traditions across six regions
• Composition: call and response, theme and variation, rondo, binary and ternary form
• Recording technology, MIDI, streaming, and using music wisely

What your student will be able to do

• Read notes in both treble and bass clef
• Name intervals by number and quality and build major and minor triads
• Identify a key signature and tell a major scale from a minor one
• Compose a short original song using a recognized musical form
• Sing a part in a round or simple two-part harmony
• Compare musical traditions from different cultures and explain how each is used

Scope and sequence

All 10 units of Music for Grade 5, in the order they are taught.

Every lesson, by title

All 100 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 100 lessons of this course. Most families already own most of it.