Musical Instruments 2: Instrument Families

Musical Instruments 2: Instrument Families

This free printable music lesson introduces children to the idea that instruments can be grouped together depending on how their sound is produced. The download is available as an editable Word file.

Age Group: 4-7 years
Time: 25 minutes
Aim: To introduce the concept of musical instrument families.
Activities: Miming, matching, sticking
Download printable music lesson link: Musical Instrument Families

Lesson Plan for Musical Instruments 2 - Instrument Families Printable

1. Give each child a copy of the worksheet which has just 4 instrument on it (page 2).
2. See if they can name any of the instruments (violin, trumpet, drum, piano) and get them to mime how they think each is played if they can.
3. Ask if they can figure out how the sound comes out. (Violin - the sound comes from the string, trumpet, the player blows inside it*, drum - the player hits it and piano, the player presses down the keys).
4. Cut up the pictures from page 1, following the squares. Shuffle, then hand each child a full set of cut up pictures and get them to stick them into the right instrument family. Use the family names frequently as you are talking about them and encourage the kids to use the words too, particularly "percussion" which is quite hard to say. 
5. Colour in the pictures. You can also get them to copy over the names of the families for writing practice.

The instruments L-R, Top to Bottom, are:

Violin - Harp - Guitar - Lyre

Trumpet - Tuba - Bassoon - Bagpipes

Drum - Tambourine - Cymbals - Xylophone

Piano - Organ - Keyboard - Accordion

(I included the lyre so that I could have fun singing "liar liar pants on fire" as a joke. You can substitute another instrument if you prefer!)

* Technically speaking, the player doesn't really blow air down the instrument. In actual fact they set up a series of vibrations using the mouthpiece and a special embouchure. This is concept is too hard for little children to understand, so it is fine to say that the player just blows down the instrument!