Our Backyard Wrap-Up

In music classes we've been tying up loose ends in our work exploring the music of our backyard while beginning our month of author/illustrator studies.

Kindergartners finished constructing their instruments and used them to keep the beat to various songs and nursery rhymes we have learned. Instruments ranged from an elaborate "gong" made of sticks and leaves to simply hitting two sticks together (though with great vigor and panache). Many viewed their instrument as a mere prototype of a fabulous instrument constructed in their minds, as they showed when they drew their instruments and instructions in full color. In talking to students about their instruments and drawings, we discovered many interesting observations about the relationship of sounds to vibrations; students talked about "great bangings and shakings" with emphatic interest.

In 1/2 classes, students did an outstanding job collecting a variety of sounds from outdoors, recording them using words and pictures, then deciding in small groups which sounds they wanted to use in a final composition. We discussed as a class how we could use these sounds to make an effective composition by learning about concepts of steady beat, rhythm, melody, and accent. However, we ran into some roadblocks in deciding how to recreate outdoor sounds in the music classroom and realized we needed some additional skill-building in order to create our own rhythm and melody, as students wished to do. So, recordings were postponed while we practice working with rhythms and melodies.

Students in 3/4 music have been exploring connections between nature, instruments, poetry and music. We listened to fragments of NPR's program on connections between music and nature, and have been working on a group project inspired by a lesson by Brian Crisp, an Orff instructor I trained with this summer. Students have been working in groups to create a piece using only their voices, bodies, recorders, and drums to convey nature haiku from: Classic haiku : a master's selection / selected and translated by Yuzuru Miura. We've studied the Japanese children's game song Kagome Kagome as an example of how to compose melodies that sound Japanese. The kids greatly enjoyed the song and have been trying to learn the words in Japanese as well as English translation, at their request. They were thrilled to learn hand drum technique and common patterns. We've also learned valuable lessons on how to work effectively in small groups, and have made great strides in negotiating and cooperation among group members. I have yet to conquer the issue of the enormous amount of noise created by 16 students simultaneously working on recorders, drums, and group negotiations. I'll let you know when I discover the secret (and sell it to music teachers worldwide).