Brief Description

Did you know that music tells a story?  Students will be listening to different pieces of music and learning the stories that go with them. They will then listen to a new piece of music and use Kid Pix to draw a picture of their interpretation of the new piece of music.

Standards and Frameworks

Technology Standards

Academic Standards Objectives

Academic

Technological Pre-Requisite Technology Skills

Students will need to:

Materials Accommodations for Special Needs

REACH students – This lesson allows students to be creative in their thinking as they create their picture.  If they finish early, as most do, they may have the option of helping another student or creating a slide show with the Kid Pix program.

SEI students – This lesson really allows a limited English student and opportunity to create all on their own.  After the instructions have been translated they are able to work independently.  The beauty of music, it truly is a universal language!

SPECIAL EDUCATION students – This task of drawing a picture as you are listening to music is not too overwhelming.  The presentation part is, so these students can practice with the teacher to help them express the mood, feeling, or picture that the music created in their mind.

Procedures

The teacher of this activity will need to pre-bookmark the PBS web site and the Carnegie Hall site before the students arrive at the lab or in the classroom.  If your students are more experienced they can type in the URL.

If getting into a computer lab is not a possibility for you, this activity could actually be done in the classroom with one or two computers.  You could use a TV converter like an Aver key to display the Carnegie Hall site on a television monitor for the students. While they are listening to “Circus” you could have them draw pictures on paper before they transfer them into Kid Pix.

Before this lesson it is a good idea to show students different examples of how musical stories.  Some examples are:  “Peter and the Wolf,” “Swan Lake,” “Carnival of the Animals,” just to name a few.

Day 1:  Talk to the students about how music can tell a story.  Before we started this activity we have listened to the classic “Peter and the Wolf.”   You should remind your students of past listening  experiences you have had in your classroom,  like “Swan Lake,” Carnival of the Animals,” or whatever listening experiences you have had!

Day 2 :  After you revisit the last lesson have the students access the Carnegie Hall web site http://www.carnegiehall.org/intro.jsp with a book mark and hop aboard and explore Carnegie Hall Listening Adventures.   This listening adventure takes the children to the New World with Dvorarks’ “New World” Symphony No. 9.  While they are listening to this piece of music this site brings up pictures of the instruments that are playing in that section.  If the students want, they can run their mouse over the instrument to see the name of those instruments.  They are not only seeing the picture of the instrument as they are hearing it being played, they are also seeing the name of that instrument. During this entire piece there is a mini movie being played that depicts the music, so students are actually seeing pictures of the story while they are hearing the music.  This piece is pretty long, you might want to pick one of the movements or just a small section of a movement.  Remember the main idea here is that students get the idea that music can tell a story.

Day 3:  Now it is their turn to create pictures to go along with the music.  Students will be listening to “Circus” by Aaron Copland.  Don’t tell the students the name of the piece when you have them do this exercise, because you don’t want to influence their interpretation.  While they are listening to the piece they will be drawing their interpretation of the music in Kid Pix.  They will need to hear the piece of music at least two or three times.  (This piece is a short piece compared to the Symphony No. 9, but I wanted it to be short so that the children wouldn’t feel overwhelmed.)

After the students have finished their drawings, they will need to save them into their lab files.  Make certain that they do not save into someone else’s’ file.  After they have been saved the teacher can then bring the pictures up on her computer and share them with the class by using a TV converter like Aver key or a Proxima.  While we are looking at the pictures have the students describe what in the music caused them to see this picture.

Assessment

Teacher Name: Marcie Young
Site: Rio Vista
Date Submitted: March 12, 2003