1.

Time needed: 5-6 minutes

2. Materials needed: White board with staff lines, piano, circle of fifths, key signature
assessment worksheet
3. Learning Objectives:
a. Students will understand the basic concepts of scales and key signatures
b. Students will be able to logically determine and identify correct scales and key
signatures
4. Assessment: a worksheet with key signatures asking students to identify them
5. Personal Objectives:
a. Clearly and effectively explain the concept of key signatures to students in a
logical manner.
b. Improve upon teaching aspects from last lesson such as not talking to the board,
keeping the curriculum centered around a target age group, call upon individual
students,
6. Procedures:
a. Welcome the class and introduce topic (scales), get them excited by saying it will
help make them great musicians and they will always use them
b. Explain that scales are notes that are put in a certain order that sound nice together
(Write “scale” on board)
i. Can have happy (play C Major scale on piano), sad (c minor), bluesy/jazzy
(C minor blues), and all kinds of other sounds
ii. They can also sound similar but start on different notes (G Major)
iii. Explain that they are super useful because we can use them to get different
sounds and emotions out of the music we play
c. Ask if someone could raise their hand and explain why they think scales sound
different
i. If they are having trouble, ask what scales are made up of, and explain that
they all have different notes in them
d. Explain that the notes within a scale are determined by the key (write “key: group
of notes” on board)
i. A key is a particular group of notes that work really well together
ii. If we know the key, we know what notes to use
e. Review sharps and flats (write on board: “sharps raise pitch”; “flats lower pitch”)
f. Explain that key signature tells us what sharps or flats to use (write “key
signature: tells us which notes”
g. Circle of Fifths – tool to use for figuring out key signature
i. Each key tells us what note to start on and which sharps or flats we need to
use
1. Sharps or flats will be on the line/space of the note that they will
change
ii. Only worry about major for now (say “ will explain that later”)
h. Write C Major scale on board
i. Say that we know C Major does not have any sharps or flats, so we just
start on C and write the notes out until we reach the next C
1. Play this on piano
i. I want to write a G Major scale
 i. Starts on G, so ask someone where G is
1. Then ask another student where the G is above that
2. Write in notes in between
ii. What else do I need to know before I can play it? (the notes)
iii. Ask for a volunteer to look at circle of fifths and tell me how many sharps
of flats and what line they are on (1; on F)
iv. Tell them that we will put a sharp in front of the F
1. Ask another student where the F is
v. Play this on piano, tell them great job figuring it out
j. Explain that sometimes there can be a lot of sharps or flats in a key and that we do
not want to always write them out
i. Explain that the key signature will be at the beginning of every line,
showing which notes will always be sharp or flat
ii. Write F# in key signature, erase accidental
1. Explain we will remember that this is F#
k. Present assessment
7. Closure: This lesson is crucial to student learning because understanding basic concepts
of key and key signatures are vital for both reading and understand music.