Performing Arts-Music

The Sound I See

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Chris LeMoyne

This lesson represents a yearlong partnership with the local Symphony. My students studied all four musical instrument families - strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion, coinciding with the schedule of the local Symphony. With each instrument family we did free line drawings of instruments (violin, trumpet, flute and timpani). The lessons include visual art, live music and active listening. Finally, their experience will bring an understanding of the culture and climate of the Symphony, as it becomes truly accessible to students of all socio/economic backgrounds.

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GRADE LEVEL
PK-2 3-5 6-8

SUBJECT
English Language Learner, Language Arts, Performing Arts-Music, Performing Arts-Other, Visual Arts

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
Brass, Concert, Instruments, Orchestra, Percussion , String , Woodwind

Landscape in Music and Art

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Marcia Greenwood

This unit is designed to integrate the elements of landscape design and elements of music. Students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade are asked to consider American landscapes as they learn how one musician, Aaron Copland, created music that is distinctly American - a musical American landscape. Teachers could certainly do one lesson from the unit and not the entire unit.

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GRADE LEVEL
3-5

SUBJECT
Performing Arts-Music, Visual Arts

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
America, Art, Biography, Brass, Composer, Copland, Dynamics, History, Instruments, Orchestra, Percussion , Rhythm, String , Tempo, Woodwind

Getting Inside Beethoven

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Bonnie Raines

Students will develop the ability to articulate moods and imagery in music through poetry. They will be able to do this through comparing and contrasting two pieces of Beethoven's music via language and movement. They will depict Beethoven in an art piece and learn about his life.

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GRADE LEVEL
All Levels

SUBJECT
English Language Learner, Language Arts, Performing Arts-Music, Social Science, Visual Arts

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
Art, Beethoven, Biography, History, Poetry

Ballad for Americans

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Claudia Rhymes

After learning about the Great Depression and the New Deal as part of a Social Science unit, students will explore the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal One Program that operated from 1935-1943. The Federal Art Project (FAP) was one arm of the WPA and included the Theater Project called "Sing for Your Supper". The song Ballad for Americans (formerly Ballad for Uncle Sam) was written for this project. Students will watch and listen to Paul Robeson sing Ballad for Americans from an online video.

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GRADE LEVEL
3-5 6-8

SUBJECT
Performing Arts-Music, Language Arts, Social Science, Technology, Visual Arts

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
History, Reading, Song

Stravinsky and the Firebird

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Bonnie Raines

This lesson integrates language arts with visual and performing arts. Students immerse themselves in the world of the Russian folktale, The Firebird, and then explore other avenues of appreciating the tale through listening and dancing to Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, as well as engaging in theater and visual arts activities.

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GRADE LEVEL
3-5

SUBJECT
Language Arts, Performing Arts-Music, Social Science, Visual Arts

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
Art, Dance, Literature, Poetry, Reading, Stravinsky

By the Great Horn Spoon!

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Carolyn Roberts

Students will complete two language arts activities for this lesson. In the first activity, students use folk songs from the era of the California Gold Rush, which are introduced in the early chapters of By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleishman, to identify folk song motifs in the classical music of Antonín Dvořák. This will be explored by the students' creation of a labeled line drawing of one of Dvořák 's compositions.

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GRADE LEVEL
3-5

SUBJECT
Language Arts, Performing Arts-Music

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
America, Composer, Folk songs, History, Literature, Reading, Song

Waltz by Three's

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Rachel Belmon

Students will review the life of Beethoven leading to a discussion about Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Students will learn to waltz and will practice skip-counting by 3’s to Moonlight Sonata.

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GRADE LEVEL
3-5

SUBJECT
Performing Arts-Music, Language Arts

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
Beethoven, Composer, Dance, Tempo

The Chemistry of Fireworks

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Jana Jean

Students will listen to Music for the Royal Fireworks by George Frideric Handel (commissioned to celebrate the signed Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749) and design a virtual fireworks display to accompany the music. Students will learn that the specific colors in a firework display are created when atoms of a particular element or a combination of elements are energized by the firework's heat. They will learn that the shape of the firework display is determined by the shape and structure of one particular component inside the firework shell.

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GRADE LEVEL
9-12

SUBJECT
Performing Arts-Music, Visual Arts, Science

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
Physics

The American Five - Pentatonic scales in early American melodies

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Mike Ogdon

Students will learn to recognize a five-tone scale. Students will sing or perform known American folksongs together in class. Advanced students will be able to identify all five pitches and even discern the actual pentatonic scale being used.

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GRADE LEVEL
9-12

SUBJECT
Performing Arts-Music, Social Science

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
Copland, History, Melody, Pitch, Song

Steel Vibrations

Posted Apr 30, 2010 by Scott Filleman

This lesson is designed to teach how sound is produced and how its qualities change depending on the medium through which vibrations pass. The students will be able to 1) identify parts of a sound (sine) wave: amplitude, frequency, phase, crest, and valley; 2) explain the difference between a pure tone and a sound with harmonics; and 3) explain how different musical instruments produce different qualities of sound (timbre).

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GRADE LEVEL
9-12

SUBJECT
Performing Arts-Music, Science

COMMENTS
0

TAGS
Percussion , Physics, Vibrations