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Lesson Plan

African American Music: Let’s Sing and Play Clapping Games

Curated and Reviewed by Lesson Planet
This African American Music: Let’s Sing and Play Clapping Games lesson plan also includes:

Two lessons focus on making a beat. Using popular African American music of its time, scholars listen and analyze the rhythm then recreate it with hands drums, and cups. 

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Concepts
african american culture, african american history, african americans, music beats, music history, music appreciation, music styles, Music, rhythm, rhythm patterns, clapping, black history month, slavery, slave culture
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Additional Tags
visual and performing arts
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Instructional Ideas
  • Work Songs are engrained in the history of slavery—add information to cover the subject more thoughtfully
  • Locate additional songs that have a strong beat for pupils to hear, and follow along to, with their musical instruments
  • Collaborate with the school's music teacher, or a parent who's expertise is in music, to add to the music-related information shared
Classroom Considerations
  • The lesson's focus is on music application, not so much the history
  • Requires hand drums and cups
Pros
  • Participants have ample opportunity for movement
  • The lesson plan is written in detail
Cons
  • In lesson two, relating Working Songs to a non-BIPOC's own experiences is problematic as it minimizes the true history of the music