2nd Graders Exploring How Music Can Help to Tell a Story

Music That Helps To Tell A Story is one of my favorite units!

I decided to start our year of learning with this.

2nd graders began by adding instruments 

to the familiar story "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" to create a sound story.

Our next activity was to listen to the Book/CD of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokoviev.

Students were able to identify the instruments used to portray the character themes. They will be able to make connections with this knowledge in our next unit.

Currently they are viewing "Peter and the Wolf" movie by Chuck Jones, which was an Emmy Award Winner. Again, students are making wonderful connections with things they've already learned!

I'll be using a Kahoot to check for understanding at the end of our Peter and The Wolf activities.

We will be doing more in depth discussions of the role music plays in films.

We'll also explore what kinds of clues music can give to help a story.

I'll be adding music from the Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky to my reading of 

"Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak.

This book is familiar to many students, and they compare their prior experiences with this book with the experience of added music.

Finally, they will hear music from the same orchestral work in Fantasia 2000 and discuss how the same music helped to tell two very different stories.

I plan to use FlipGrid again for feedback from the students.