Learning About Nature Through
Music and the Arts
Be Curious Be Inspired Create and Share Through Music |
Be Curious Be Inspired Create and Share Through Music |
Check out this graphic of the Manitoba Music Curriculum: Nice, hey? I love it. I've pretty much memorized it, which makes it super easy to incorporate serendipitous discoveries while creating music and add those on-the-spot learnings as we go! Now let's check out the Manitoba Drama Curriculum: It looks great! But also... seems very familiar... because it is also a butterfly, and also says similar things to the music one, but in a lot of cases took out the word "music" from the exact same SLO (Specific Learning Outcome) and inserted the word "drama"... makes it easy to also incorporate drama into classes! Now let's look at the Manitoba Dance Curriculum: You guessed it! It looks like the music one as well! In fact, I took a Dance Education course, and a Drama Education course during my Post Baccalaureate Degree in Education and worked with both of these curricula, and felt quite at home as they are all so similar. I have also worked closely with some of the people in charge of making these curricula, and I know they did this on purpose, so that arts can be integrated. In fact, it's one of the SLOs, that students should: "recognize that music is an art form, along with dance, drama, literary arts, and visual arts". As well, each of these curricula invite and encourage us to: "experiment with music to communicate ideas derived from a variety of stimuli (e.g., visual stimuli such as artworks or an aquarium; a remembered or an imaginary experience; a poem or a story; music-listening experiences; themes or concepts from other subject areas)" So experiment we shall! I love incorporating drama, dance and visual art into music! We aren't going to use visual art just yet as it is hard to do outside, but maybe soon! And, to be fair, I certainly have done so in the past... check THIS LINK out to see a cool project where grade 5s were inspired by a painting and created music! Have morphed my teaching over to connection to other performing arts, which really interconnects with music anyway, because for example, Dance is shows music with our bodies. And in the music curriculum, there is an SLO of demonstrating music concepts through movement. In the Orff level courses, there are 5 different sections that are taught and a main one is movement. Moving to music is how children learn. Moving to music (dancing) and music PLAYING is not separated in a lot of cultures… eg in West Africa there is no drumming without dancing. They are interconnected. Moving to music we are learning actually helps us feel the "movement" of the music which gives it a direction... and music always has a direction... it is not static. Any musical line is always going in a direction and we can feel it more if we move to it. We've been moving to demonstrate rhythm, beat, form, patterns and even more to come, and you can SEE students anticipating upcoming musical sections because they are BEING the music by dancing to it. It's beautiful to see. Drama: When we are acting out the music with movement and role playing, we are showing the feeling of the music (musical expression), and then makes the technical playing sound better. What takes a performance of music (piano etc) over the top is when a musician not only plays a piece with technical perfection, but infuses "musicality" - which is really the feeling - into the piece. Anyone in a choir is demonstrating drama while singing. You are telling a story. You are acting like this is your story. Even when you are playing you MUST understand the character of what you are playing for. Check out 11 year old Nathan explaining his “getting into character” for playing The Swan by St. Saens on cello. He KNOWS he has to BE the swan with his instrument. Watching him describe how to achieve this looks almost EXACTLY like watching an actor describe how to be their character. Also this is the cutest video ever: In fact, this time of teaching outside, where it is difficult to take instruments outside, or have enough, or not generate too much waste with individual instrument packs if possible (I am the head of our environment club so I like to consider these things if it is possible to do a different way)... I love the idea of leaning into these other elements of drama and movement that make my students’ musicianship better. When we focus too much on just the mechanical elements of this finger here, that elbow raised there, the actual magical MUSIC of the piece can disappear. It is an art, and these other elements help bring that magic out because movement and feelings are how kids connect to things. What a wonderful year to explore music in a different way!! First, we will use a game called Zip Zap Boing that I have seen in acting classes and looks sooo fun! We would be spread much more apart outside, but same idea! Update: Fun - but it needs to be NO wind, or the kids can't hear or see each other in their distanced circle. If you actually click on the video, you can see the description of the game! I love games like this, because even though it isn't music directly, there are PROPERTIES of music learning being utilized! This game is the beginning of improvisation, which students need to learn with so many music outcomes, plus taking risks, cooperating and collaborating with others, inspiring the abilitity to work together collectively, participating actively in experiences... it's teaching them to pass an idea along to someone else, which I have gotten students to do with improvisation on instruments in music class... from here, we could move on to actual music improvisation ideas, such as song games with improvisation in them, or we could take this game and find a way to make it musical, such as with rhythms, or do this game without dropping the beat... I don't know what that would look like just yet, but inspiration hits me at the weirdest times, so I may add to this later when ideas come to me! Or, if you are reading this, and you also teach music, do you have an idea for music extension? Share in the comments! Another fun one I have seen is the 1 2 3 game, which I immediately saw a lot of music spin offs that would be fun... and super difficult so we would build to those lol! For me, what I would do with right away, is do this game on the beat (and further away... distancing!) which if we are saying 1 2 3, is in 3/4 time! That is a new meter to play with for a lot of kids! Lots of music we listen to is 4/4 time, so 3/4 time is something to work on. Then, for a music connection, I would add other time signatures in, like 6/8, 5/4, and many more to work with. And I would play pieces in those time signatures to help us work with them, perhaps doing body percussion practice in those time signatures to get the feel of it.
Going to be a fun week with these drama games mixed in. Of course with a dance warm up to get us less chilly and ready to go! To see curricular connections for this arts experience, click on the picture below!
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Click HERE to go back to the first postBio - Jennifer EngbrechtI am a music specialist in the Louis Riel School Division in Manitoba, Canada. I have a strong interest in the interrelationship of all subject areas, especially infusing the arts into all learning, and as their own stand-alone subjects. NEW:
So excited to be interviewed for Green Teacher Magazine's "Talking With Green Teachers" Podcast My article in the MSSTA Journal for Fall 2021... Click on the image below:
My article in the Summer 2021 Green Teacher Magazine. Click on the image below:
Disconnect: The Outdoor Education Podcast - listen to this episode about Teaching Music Outside by clicking on the picture below:
Looking for the WSO Manitoba Mosaic lesson for Hey Terre by Kelly Bado?
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