Beethoven Symphony No. 5

Back at school- a new one this year. I usually do a composer at the beginning of each class. Sometimes it is the composer for a month and other times it might be for just a week. Depends on the composer and how my time is distributed in the month.

To start off the school year I began with Beethoven. Not knowing these students I wanted to start off with a composer I figured they knew. I was correct and they love him. So today I decided to do the Beethoven section from the Playing with the Classics Vol. I by Peggy D. Bennett. I also created a Smart Notebook lesson to go along with it that you can download here.***You will have to attach your own sound files to the lesson but those can be found with the book.

Since the students were already familiar with Beethoven, talking about his music was an easy conversation. I told the students that some composers want us to think about something in particular when we listen to their music but in the piece we were going to listen to no one was really sure what Beethoven was trying to say. We listened and then I asked them what they thought. First graders were not very forthcoming with suggestions and so I asked them if they thought Beethoven was saying "Now go to sleep....." or perhaps "Here comes a storm....". They liked the 2nd suggestion and immediately I had students saying "Here comes a storm...." or their own variation of that sentence. I also noticed they quickly had their hands on the floor tapping out the rhythm pattern. No encouragement needed there! I jumped in though and showed them a different way to use their hands as instructed in the book, tapping and then bringing my hands high like a conductor. They picked it up quickly again. I followed the script in the book, it worked well. The students responded nicely. We listened, did the hand pattern, and then followed the map.

This was a very easy and fun lesson to present. Doesn't take too much time. It was a nice lesson to use after all of our discussion about Beethoven. Gold star for this lesson!

***For some reason, when I save and then open this file in IE, it does not save as a Notebook file. In Mozilla Firefox, no problem. No issues with Chrome either. Go figure.

The Farmer in the Dell and the end of the school year

The end of this school year came faster than I expected. I am leaving my present school and moving to a new school in the diocese. Which means that I had to pack up over 27 years of material. Not so much fun. It was a good time though to clean and purge out those things that have long ago become useless. Lots of recycled things! And since I am at the end of the year, no classes, but as I said I will reflect on past lessons and get some of my files uploaded.

The Farmer in the Dell

I used the Farmer in the Dell from the Song Play book, " a collection of playful songs for ages 4-7, written by 8 Montana educators and compiled and edited by Dr. Peggy Bennett." I love this book and really enjoyed the Farmer in the Dell. This particular version comes with a script for the storytelling of the song. My students loved this even though 99% of them already knew the song. Which I think proves that everyone loves listening to a good story. Good storytelling is whole other discussion but one worthy of investigating. Not today though.

Back to Song Play- I used the story in the book but I also created and used a Smart Notebook lesson file. There is one on the Smart Exchange site if you prefer but you are welcome to access my file here.

DOWNLOAD FILE


During my lesson, I told them the story and then we reviewed through the characters. We stopped and talked about each character. For instance we spent a lot of time discussing farmers; where they lived, what you might find on a farm, what a farmer might grow and so on. We also discussed if a farmer could be a girl or a boy. Each character in the story had many things to talk about and this could easily be an entire lesson just with sharing their thoughts and ideas. Unfortunately, most of us don't have time to hear every comment so you will have to gently set parameters about how many answers you need or tell children that if they did not get to answer they will get to the next time. It is very important that children understand that you respect and value their contributions to the class discussion.

We moved to the song next, sing each part and using the images on the Smart Notebook lesson as a guide. By the time we got to the game the song and story were well established in their minds and we were able to easily play. The Song Play book has wonderful directions and script to go along with this song. This is certainly one of my students favorite lessons.

Hop Old Squirrel Lesson File

Since I am nearing the end of the school year I won't be able to share my classroom happenings. Now would be a good time to start sharing my lesson files. Attached here is a Smart Notebook lesson for the traditional song Hop Old Squirrel. This is a lesson geared towards Kinder-First grade. It is a work in progress although I have included some questions to ask as you teach and some movement ideas. Feel free to change/adapt as you need. You will notice the Creative Commons license on the first and second pages. It is an "Attribution-Non-commercial-Share Alike" license. Thanks for looking and sharing!

DOWNLOAD FILE