This week and last, we began our month of Author/Illustrator studies in
Music. Our ordinarily light-filled music room was darkened with swaths of
fabric hanging in the windows to set the stage for exploring the poems from the
book A Pocketful of Stars: Poems about
the Night, compiled by Nikki Siegen-Smith and illustrated by Emma
Shaw-Smith. Again inspired by lessons designed by Orff educator Brian Crisp,
the children first followed a beam of light with their hands and bodies, then
later with the sounds of barred Orff instruments in our room. We then read the
poem “Night Lights” by Michelle Magorian, and tried to use our conducting and
improvisations to illustrate the poem with sound. The students had enormous
amounts of fun conducting each other, and discovered characteristics of
movement and the different barred instruments as they worked.
The image of a group of children moving as one and slowly stretching
toward a beam of light was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a
while. I’m hoping it will be a lasting memory for the children as well as for
me.
Sounds beautiful, Cara. Love hearing your way of transitioning your environment!
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