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 |
Just loved being outside all week! It started off quite chilly, so the school sent out a reminder to be dressed for the weather, as not only do students have recess outside as usual, but now they have phys ed and music outside! Exciting! Our field is so huge, we couldn't even see where the phys ed classes were most of the time, lol! I am co-teaching with my teaching partner, Mme Flett, who also has her own amazing lessons. I have many classes on my own, and some that we share together. For those, we divided them up so that she runs the younger grade classes which are the grades she would usually teach on her own, and I run the older grades. So that students don't know who to look to for direction, this seems to work the best, and the other teacher acts more like the sous-chef, modeling listening, participation, plus playing music etc for the head teacher. It is always so special to get a chance to watch other teachers teach, which we don't get to do that often, as we are isolated in our own rooms. For this reason, I love our LRSD Orff Days where I get to watch our brilliant divisional music teachers share their love of music, creativity, and enthusiasm with students from around the division! I will be sharing the lessons that I did with the classes I ran or taught myself. This first week students got to come outside and MOVE! I plan on having a lot of movement in EVERY class, because every other part of their day is in their desk, in their classroom. So in music I want them to really focus on using movement to demonstrate music skills! This Learning Outcome is under Language and Performance Skills in our Manitoba Music Curriculum: "Use movement to explore music concepts, enhance music making, and express ideas (e.g., use movement to show high and low, steady beat )" And did we ever use movement this week! This past year, we missed the traditional Folkdance in the Park event that we have had for more than 25 years in LRSD! We did have Folkdance@Home, which was AMAZING, and many students from across the division participated in their homes that day! I also created videos of the dances beforehand so students could practice, and have fun figuring out where I was in Assiniboine Park as I danced! However, there is nothing quite like us dancing together! Most classes danced the Cha Cha Slide when they would arrive, which was a great warm up seeing as the first couple of days were chilly! Before this, we would practice making sure we were more than 6 feet apart, which is both a phys ed skill, to find one's own space, and a math skill, estimation, which we would talk about. I demonstrated how far apart this should look by spacing myself more than 6 feet from a tree next to me. We are so lucky to have this much space in our school yard so we might as well use it and space out a lot so we can move! Then, we played The Name Game! Sooo fun! Learned about this game through our amazing LRSD music coordinator, Ingrid Pedersen! It's like the video below except we were all distanced more than 6 feet, and we did NOT walk to the centre of the circle to show the movement of each person. We would stay in our spot: As you can see, it is a theatre game. First, I'm a big fan of ALL the arts. I like to integrate them together. Musicians are always sharing feelings from the music they are performing. In the past, I was always telling choir members they are telling a story with the songs we are singing. Plus, drama classes really help people come out of their shell, be creative, share their voice with confidence... skills that are great for all parts of life! We've all been in our homes, protecting ourselves and others for a long time, so now that we are in classes again, it is great to wake up our energy and feeling of community with games like these. Was sooo great to see students sharing fun movements and their personalities to play this game! I also like to integrate other subjects, not just the arts, so we did this game a bit differently, in that once the first person did their movement we would see the second student, then ADD THEM TOGETHER! So now we would see name/movement 1 PLUS name/movement 2... then the 3rd person, so we would see now name/movement 1 PLUS name/movement 2 PLUS name/movement 3!! Etc! So we kept adding on! After around person 4 or 5, I would stop and ask if they could tell me what was happening? How do we know who is next? Why do we know that? Well, it took a while sometimes, because it was the first day back in about SIX MONTHS, but eventually someone would say IT'S A PATTERN! Yes it is :-). And it is an increasing pattern! 1, 12, 123, 1234, 12345 etc! What is cool is that not only is this a Learning Outcome from Math, but increasing patterns are a Learning Outcome in music! In music, they are called Cumulative Songs, and I shared an example of one we do all the time, "L'arbre est dans ses feuilles"! This is one of the reasons why music is so important in schools, because music is really connected to every other subject in different ways. Here, we see how students are able to learn about a math/numeracy concept through music! We didn't sing the song, we just mentioned that connection as they have sang it before! I truly appreciate how our school, and school division recognizes the many ways music is important for students. Check out this link to see all the ways music helps students in school! Here is the nature connection too... because I would point out to students that everything is connected, and would point to the leaves in the trees behind me to say that they are a pattern too! Earth is cool. Anyway! Then, we learned a dance that used to be one of the Folkdance in the Park dances, called 7 Jumps from Denmark, which is... AN INCREASING PATTERN! So fun to see that there are increasing patterns in math, and that math is in music, and math is in dance, and drama, and nature! We did the dance as below, except everyone was spaced out more than 6 feet and no one held hands, which I haven't seen before anyway! If we had time, we did more Folkdance in the Park dances which are all patterns as well... not increasing patterns, but still patterns... because the dances come from the music, and the music played for the dances are also a pattern, called a "form" in music. We use forms in music all the time. Such a fun week dancing in the sunshine! On to week 2! Concepts this week from the Manitoba Music Curriculum:
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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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