My lesson last week with main idea and topic sentences went so well that the teacher asked me to continue working with the kids on the same topic. This one took A LOT of brain power because wow it is hard to teach multiple creative arts bridge lessons on the same topic. I thought hard, made lots of lesson plan drafts, deleted lots of lesson plan drafts and finally after lots of thought and work, showed up to the elementary school hoping all would work out.
When I got there I started the music right away and started tracing a listening map to "Hungarian Dance in gm" by Johannes Brahms. Every time I do a listening map with the kids, I am amazed at how they instantly go quiet and are so enthralled by every little move my finger makes.
Next, I separated each section into colors. "Pay attention to how your color section sounds! Ask yourself, is it fast or slow? Does it change? How does it sound! You will be making up a dance to your section!"
The students listened intently and were excited to do the class dance. We all stood up and as I called out each section color, the students did their dances. I was again amazed by their creativity and active listening.
When the kids sat down, I showed them how each section was assigned a letter. ABCD. As we listened again, they yelled out which section was playing and just like that, as a class we determined the form:
AABBCDABB.
"So let's say AB- the part that it starts with is our main idea of our song. What do you see happens at the end?" "It repeats at the end again!" one of the students commented. "So if we are comparing this to a paragraph and this is our main idea, what happens in the middle?" "Key Details! C and D are key details". The kids picked it up immediately. "So then what is this part at the end?" I asked. "It is the restatement of the main idea. Like in a conclusion!" I was amazed at how well they made the connections.
"Okay, let's practice writing a main idea, 2 key details (for our purposes with this song) and a conclusion- being a restating of our main idea. Here is my example" :
I showed them my simple example and encouraged them to write a main idea, 2 key details and a conclusion sentence, re-stating the main idea. I encouraged them to get ideas from what they heard in the music if they needed some. I played the song twice in a row as they wrote their sentences.
The kids were so creative and funny! Some of them even made up exotic experiences. Here are a few of my favorite:
Main idea: I had a really cool fall break because I did some crazy things.
Key Details: I went to a shark infested ocean.
I laid in the sand and ate chips but then seagulls ate them.
Conclusion: I really liked my fall break because of all the crazy things I did.
Main idea: I had a really fun fall break because I got to go to Moab.
Key Details: The first thing we did when we got there was go four wheeling.
Then we got to see our condo.
Conclusion: My fall break was a blast because I got to go to Moab.
This lesson was a really fun and effective way for the kids to practice main idea, key details and the restatement of the main idea.
Lesson plan:
