Lesson Plan # 2

Date: 10/8/2015

Grade: 4
Duration: 10 mins
National Music Standards: Perform, Respond, Connect
Repertoire: Old Paint
Other Teaching Materials: piano for harmonic accompaniment, powerpoint with maps
and lyrics
New Vocabulary: time signature, AABA form, folk song
Lesson Objectives:
Students will (sample objectives)
sing Old Paint with accurate pitches and rhythms
demonstrate understanding of triple meter by identifying and describing it
demonstrate understanding of form, identify parts of the song and the pattern
discuss the lyrics of the song talk about folk songs and cowboys and the West
Teaching Procedure
Prepare
Introduce the Old Paint as an American folk song (Does anyone know what a folk son
is?) from the West, around the area of Wyoming or Montana. Ask students if they know
where these states are, review them on a map. Then explain that this song was likely sung
by cowboys. Do you know anything about cowboys? Who were they? What did they do?
Present
1. Ask students to listen for the words Old Paint as I sing. Can you figure out what or
who Old Paint is? What do those words mean?
2. Sing song with animation, connecting with each student as I sing. At the end, ask
students to raise their hands if they have ideas about what Old Paint is?
3. Ask students to listen to the song again too see if they can figure out whats going on?
Is it sad or happy? Who is the speaker? What is he/she doing?
4. Teach song: have students echo as I sing each phrase.
5. Have students echo what you sing phrase by phrase.
6. Sing song as a whole.
7. Talk about the form of the song: Did you guys notice that some parts of the song are
the same and some are different? Can you point to two lines of the song that are exactly
the same? Can you point to a line of the song that is different?
8. Label the lines AABA, with students helping.
9. Divide the class in half: Half sings the A lines, the other half sings B. Then switch.
Practice & Extend
Ask students to come up with motions to the song or express the form (one motion to
correspond to the A section and one motion to correspond to the B section.) Give students

a minute to brainstorm with partners. And ask them to share with the class. Ask them to
draw inspiration from what they know about cowboys to come up with suitable
movements.
Assess & Close
Sing the song one last time which students perform the motions they made up to convey
the form.
(Maybe share another cowboy folk song with the students if time? I found some cool sites
and videos that might be fun to watch as a class. We could even talk about the form of
those songs? Still looking through resources.)