Grade 1 Unit 5 Homes and Shelters:
Drawing to different moods in music
Grade 1 Unit 5
focused on “Where we are in place and time” with the music connection
investigating how “Music creates ambiance in places and spaces”.
Students started the unit by drawing “homes”
in association to the music from Holst’s planets. Each movement describes
musically the ambiance one might imagine to be found on a planet. The first movement listened to was
called
Mars-the Bringer of War and had
themes of energy and aggression, which contrasted greatly to the next movement played; the serene melodies of
Venus. In their
drawings, students were asked to illustrate a “home” or “habitat” that
connected to the music’s mood. A variety of pictures depicting unusual habitats
and homes were looked at and discussed as well. The students then tried to
imagine what kind of music would go with the habitat pictures. (Bench mark MU6.1.B.)
The
Jamaquacks rhyme and sound game ( initiated in Unit 4) integrated the visual and audial learning, more specifically, the site to sound connections in this unit. A musical comic strip score was listened
to. Students were given sound flash cards which displayed sound suggestions.
After working with the model sound scape of the
comic strip recording
, students were placed in small groups to practice the flash card sounds. They soon created their own
musical sound scapes and drew them on a blank comic strip. The groups’ practice involved sharing each others' work. One student conducted the passage of sounds of another
student’s comic strip’s sound scape composition as the others in the group performed them. (MU1.1.C) The graphic notation in the sound scape activities, lead to student understanding about traditional
and non traditional musical notation. The central idea became apparent; that musical sounds can be
represented visually or a visual cue can be transformed into music sounds. Skills, which identified and interpreted
graphic notation in the comic strip activity, transferred nicely to reading and
writing traditional notation: quarter notes, paired eighth notes and half notes.
(MU3.1.C) These skills are regularly refined in games such as the musical Restaurant during music class.
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