As a part of our mission to help more young people discover bluegrass music, IBMA hosts an annual Bluegrass Lesson Plan Competition. 

The competition is designed to encourage and reward the creation of instructional units at all grade levels that will expose students to the sounds and the analysis of bluegrass music.  Lesson plans are judged by a team of experienced teachers familiar with the genre, with the aim of honoring plans that deliver high quality instruction in an interesting way, while conforming to educational standards nation-wide and also being easily adaptable by other teachers who may or may not be familiar with the genre.

The Lesson Plans Competition underlines the organization’s intent to build curriculum materials in a variety of content areas that will build awareness and appreciation of bluegrass music as a unique American art form.

Four prizes of $300 will be awarded to the best lesson plans in grades K-12 annually, with up to six additional lesson plans receiving $100 “honorable mention” awards. The top lesson plans will be posted in this section of the IBMA website, for use by teachers and home schooling parents around the world.  

November 30 is the annual deadline to submit lesson plans. Judges review lesson plans from December – January, and winners are announced February 1.  In addition to their prize money and having lessons posted online at ibma.org, teachers who write winning lesson plans will receive a plaque and will be recognized at the Special Awards Luncheon at the next World of Bluegrass event in Nashville, Tenn.  

Additional info:

• Both single class lesson plans and multi-class units of study are welcome for submission.
• K-12 lesson plans may include classes in the following five content areas: Music (instruction or appreciation), Science & Math, Language Arts, Technology and Social Studies.
• Plans will be judged for suitability and relevance, accuracy of information, degree of actively engaging and stimulating students, organization, evaluation measures, and to what degree they address state educational standards.  (A guideline list of sample educational standards utilized in most states will be available to teachers.) 
• Rather than recognizing specific exceptional individual bluegrass programs, this competition will be evaluated on how well the lesson plans might transfer easily to other teachers and other school systems.

Lesson plans from home schooling parents and also university students studying to be teachers are welcome.

Download the Application: click here