The Planets! Part 2- Art and Listening Activity!

Here's part 2 of my Planets Unit post! Check out PART ONE (which included a Smartboard intro activity to the piece and a funny Holst video) .

Activity #2

During the next class, I had students write a paragraph about Holst. They prepared for this by doing their web hunt (from Part 1), watching my biographical video and doing their own research at home.

Activity #3

During this same class, we listening more closely to Mars and Venus. You all have to check out Sofia Lopez-Ibor's latest resource entitled, "Blue is the Sea" if you haven't already. It is amazing and has a section on teaching students about The Planets! In her book she includes a chart for students to fill out as they listen to Mars and Venus. 

Buy it HERE!

I adapted the chart to suit our goals. I found that the chart really prepared students for our art and listening activity. It made the kids think about movement, instrumentation, emotion, etc. in connection with the pieces.

Activity #4

For the next few classes we embarked on a music and art adventure! Since reading "Blue is the Sea", I have really integrated much more art, as well as movement, into my teaching! Lopez-Ibor integrats art so seamlessly into her teaching. I love it! So, while listening to "Mars", students painted abstract art to portray what they heard, felt and thought of from the music. They did the same while listening to "Venus" and painted on the other half of their page.

This is what they came up with:

It was pretty funny because most of them think "good" art as being concrete and realistic. This was hard for many of them to just let go and paint what they hear, feel and think, instead of what they see.

I found a super cool art project from Katie at Adventures of an Art Teacher. I adapted it a tiny bit for us. Students chose their favourite part of each of the two paintings and traced a circle, then cut it out. The circles were pasted onto black construction paper. Students embellished there background with oil pastels, making it look like planets in outer space.

It was super neat when the kids were adding details because they had so much fresh knowledge from their Science unit!

This student's painted planets really portray the peaceful serenity of the Venus movement and the contrasting red, fiery chaos of the Mars movement.

As a wrap up assignment, I had students listen to the two movements a final time and reflect on which piece they liked best and why. Because we had explored the music in unique ways, the kids had much to say! 

It was so cool watching music, visual art and science come together so beautifully.

- Steph

Pete the Cat! Rocking in My School Shoes Composition Unit!

I have been working with my grade 3 class on creating music for the book "Pete the Cat, Rocking in my School Shoes". It is really coming to life! 

These are the steps we took before getting to our end result.

Step 1:

The first thing we did was read the book "Pete the Cat, Rocking in my School Shoes"

by James Dean and Eric Litwin.

Find it  HERE on Amazon.

Step 2:

The students then composed a melody (as a class) to match the reoccurring speech pattern from the book. We used a Smartnotebook file to help us.

We changed things and voted on ideas as we went along. Here is our final melody:

Click HERE for the FREE Smartnotebook file. It looks like this:

Step 3:

Next I divided my class into 4 groups. Each group represented an area from the story, where Pete was wearing his shoes. Each group was in charge of creating a soundscape to fit their area (busstop, lunchroom, library, playground). While choosing instruments and creating their soundscape, the groups were to write down shapes and lines that represented their composition (something that they could refer to later).

Step 4:

Next, students each created artwork that represented a "snapshot in time" of their group composition. They were to refer to their group composition notes for ideas. Using chalk pastels, each student drew their groups sound (I told them to imagine that they could see the sound and asked them what it would look like).

After drawing their sound in pastel, each student had to draw their school area in black marker. They made sure to include Pete in their drawing!

Step 5:

Finally we put it all together! We read the story, singing the song every time it came up in the book. Each group held up their "snapshot" and played their soundscape at the appropriate time in the story. It was so fun! The grade 3 class is sharing their story via Polycom (video conferencing) with a class from New Jersey tomorrow and we are so excited!

Pete on the playground!

Pete outside waiting for the bus!

Pete in the lunchroom!

Pete in the library!

What kinds of things do you do in your Music room with picture books? Please share!

- Steph





Painting Music

My grade Grade 4 students have been studying the orchestral piece "The Harvesters" by John Estacio for our upcoming concert Musical Adventures, presented for students by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. We are so fortunate to have access to such an excellent program!

We listened to and discussed the music. We noticed that within the piece there are many instrument parts that overlap one another. Students portrayed these layers in their art as well as any other elements that they heard. Students then reflected on their art and its connection to the music. This is what they came up with! 

Students used watercolour paint, salt, and marker to simulate the overlapping layers in the music.

- Steph

Under the Sea- Move Like a Jellyfish!

I am doing an Under the Sea theme right now with my K-3 students and they are loving it! We are having so much fun with it. Here is a photo of my bulletin board this month!

This past week in grade 2 we read poems from Commotion in the Ocean by Giles Andreae. We focused on the Jellyfish poem and did a few things with it.

• First I read the Jellyfish poem, then we all read it together. 
• Next we brainstormed words to describe how a jellyfish would move.
• We then chose instrument sounds that would match those words.
• Finally, we practiced moving like jellyfish: slow, smooth, floating, curvy, jiggly.
• Some children created an underwater soundscape to portray the movement, while the rest moved like jellyfish.
• The following class we reviewed how a jellyfish would move and then painted that movement!

I found this great idea for jellyfish from Kristin over at For the Love of Art. Check out her blog for the instructions!

This was such a fun way to connect poetry, music and visual art!

What are your songs and ideas that would fit into an Under the Sea theme? Please share!!

- Steph

Freddie the Frog!

Oh Freddie, I love you!

I used the Freddie the Frog books for the first time! I LOVE them! In September, I used Sharon Birch's first book in this series, "The Thump in the Night", to teach notes in the Treble Clef staff to my grade 3 students.

The series connects stories to musical concepts, making it much easier for students to remember. Each book focuses on a specific musical concept. "The Thump in the Night" focuses on learning about half of the notes in the treble clef staff. 

Students learn about Treble Clef Island, where Freddie lives, and each character or landmark is found in a particular area on the island. Each character or landmark corresponds to a letter on the staff. For example Freddie's home is located on the most northern part of Treble Clef Island (where "F" on the line is located). We have also read "The Secret of Crater Island", which identifies the rest of the staff notes and D, C and B below the staff. 

The series includes a teacher handbook with easy to follow lesson plans on how to use Freddie and the books.

I love using the Freddie the Frog puppet with the class as we learn through his stories! The kids LOVE him! I was concerned that they would be too old for this, but my grade 3 students really enjoyed pretending that he was real!

I also have Eli, Freddie's best friend, to help us with classroom activities.

After reading "The Thump in the Night" and "The Secret of Crater Island", and learning about the musical alphabet, students created their own Treble Clef Island maps. Although it was a fun activity, it took a really long time for students to make the maps! I will have to think of a way to simplify it for next year.

Click below for access to a Smartboard activity to prepare students for the Treble Clef Island art activity.

Treble Clef Island Smartboard Activity

I hope you all try the Freddie books! They are such great fun and the students really remember the characters! I am looking forward to seeing how this helps their reading skills for grade 4!

-Steph

Our Hands Make Music!

I had a large purple wall front and centre in the Music room with nothing on it! My overhead projector screen was mounted on that wall, but now I have a Smartboard in a different location and the purple wall is bare! I tried posters and such, but didn't like that too much. On that wall, I wanted one decorative focal point in my classroom and something beautiful, meaningful and not too complicated for the students to make.

I decided to incorporate student artwork into a school start-up activity in order to create a removable mural!

Our theme for the artwork was "Ryerson Hands Make Music". Every student in the school ended up creating a hand outline with a phrase on it that began with "My hands..." along with their name. Students had to finish the phrase with their own idea such as "My hands play the drums" and decorate the hand cut-out.

For each class, we brainstormed different activities that we do in Music with our hands. I also let the older kids share ideas that didn't necessarily apply to our Music class, but that still applied to music like, "My hands play the piano."

I had the activity prepared differently depending on the grade level. The grade 4-6 students did everything on their own; tracing their own hand, writing their idea, decorating their hand, and cutting their art out. Grade 2 and 3 students were given a hand trace to write in and decorate, Kindergarten and grade 1 students got to choose from 5 different types of hand traces that I had already made, with a typed phrase inside of it. 

After every student had finished their hand art, I took two long pieces of blue bulletin board paper to make the base of our mural art. I typed up the letters for our art piece title and glued them in the middle of the bulletin board paper. Separating the hands by colour instead of grade, I glued them on, circling the title from the middle out. To make it look a little more polished and circular, I cut the blue paper edge close to the hands. Here is the finished product!

The kids love it and it adds to the welcoming and creative environment in the Music room!

- Steph