All in the Family

I was much older than I would like to admit before I realized that you can look at any instrument and be able to tell what orchestra family it would fit into. I thought you just had to know that a trumpet was brass but a saxophone was a woodwind. Because of my ignorance, I try very hard to make sure that students learn what characteristics an instrument needs to belong in each family.

We made anchor charts for each family. I wrote it, but had the students tell me what to write.

My older grades did a review of instruments by playing a guessing kind of game. They had an instrument on a sticky note on their head and had to ask their partner yes or no questions to try to figure out what instrument they were.

My 2nd graders discussed each family and then color coded a seating chart for an orchestra.