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Music Activities and Resources for Kids and Teachers
MusicKit
the Virtual Music Classroom
This is the first of a series of activities to demonstrate the 2 MOST IMPORTANT things in music:
1. The Beat and
2. Listening
The activities here will demonstrate the importance of listening in music and how to listen to music. It may be taught with the previous lesson that demonstrated the basic and fundamental importance of the BEAT and beat keeping in music.
In the process of all this, the teacher will meet all students and learn their names!
These activities could be repeated a number of times in different lessons, adding some new level of sophistication each time.
Content Standard #1: Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music
- Students sing expressively, with appropriate dynamics, phrasing, and interpretation
- Students sing in groups, blending vocal timbres, matching dynamic levels, and responding to the cues of a conductor
Content Standard #3: Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments
Achievement Standard:
- Students improvise "answers" in the same style to given rhythmic and melodic phrases
Content Standard #6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music
- Students identify simple music forms when presented aurally
- Students demonstrate perceptual skills by moving, by answering questions about, and by describing aural examples of music
- Students use appropriate terminology in explaining music, music notation, music instruments and voices, and music performances
Content Standard #8: Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts
- Students identify similarities and differences in the meanings of common terms (e.g., "listen" "beat" high/low)
Students will gain an appreciation for the role of listening in music making.
Students will experiment with how to listen by focusing on a specific listening task.
Students will listen for and describe loud/soft and "dynamics".
Students will listen for and perform the beat in perfect unison while singing a song.
Students will be introduced to the possibilities of reading music.
Listening skills - focus on sounds
Beat keeping skills and pitch matching
Reading music from left to right.
Lesson 2:
1. Discuss importance of listening. I have many musician friends and ALL of them - from rock to classical musicians say " the most important thing in music is LISTENING. With younger kids who did the previous "Bumble-Beat" activity, ask what they had to do to har their classmates names? Answer:"LISTEN!"
2. Read a story about listening. Suggestions for stories are listed in "Resources " below
3. Teacher sing the chorus for "Make A Noise!"
3. Discuss what listening means. Challenge the class to be COMPLETELY silent for 30 seconds. Have all close their eyes and open their ears on the count of 3. Ask them to see how many sounds they can hear and how far away they can hear them.
4. After listening for 30 seconds (Praise success in acheiving TOTAL silence) raise hands and discuss what was heard. Can they make the noises with voices?
5. Try again from #3 above. This time listen so closely that you can reproduce the sound.
6. Teach "Make A Noise" - Ask for volunteers to fill in the blanks for the lines "I heard a ________
and the sound that it made was _______".
7. Use the same listening exercise over the course of 2 or 3 lessons. Once the song is well learned have kids create an illustrated book with the song in it. Use this PDF blank for the book. Point out and explain the dynamic markings in the music if they are new to the students. If not, ask the students to show you what tells them to sing loudly or softly, piano, forte and mezzo-piano .
(Download Acrobat Reader here to read PDF file)
For young kids:
Indoor Noisy Book, by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, 1942 Harper & Row,
The Noise Lullaby, by Jacqueline K. Ogburn, John Sandford (Illustrator), Lathrop, 1995 (out of print but still available)
Good Night Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, Harper & Row, - point out the things in the illustrations. What sounds might you hear?
The Nursery Quiet & Noisy Book, by Rich, Scharlotte, Tish Tenud (Illustrator)Published by Questar Publications, Publication date: October 1995
For a little older:
Carolina Shout, by Alan Schroeder, pictures by Bernie Fuchs, published by Dial Books for Young Readers, 1995
i see the rhythm, paintings by Michele Wood, Text by Toyomi Igus, Children's Book Press, San Francisco. Just pages 4-7 and/or page 21
Canada NFB Film: A Sense of Sound, 1986, 6 min. 00 sec
Note those who are unable to listen for the full 30 seconds.
Note whether or not students are able to recreate the noises they hear.
Note whether students are able to recreate teh dynamics of the song "Make A Noise".
Read through the music and notice how well students follow the music.
Ask students to point to the rests or the dynamic markings where loud or soft sounds are heard.
Encourage kids to sing along too, when they have learned the song.
Listening is truly the MOST important part about music. See the "Listening Page" for more info on this song and ways to approach listening in music lass.
Last Change: 6:56 PM, Saturday, September 12, 1998
Created by: Kit Eakle