In preparation for our final project, last week we discovered how we can use music to create images of Earth's landforms. Today's goal was to help the students discover how they can use instruments to create the imagery of a landform.
We started out by reading the book Earth Verse by Sally M. Walker. This is a book of Haiku's all about the Earth, including many landforms and processes the fifth graders have been studying.
After reading the whole thing, I turned back to a haiku about a river. "Using these instruments in front of me, how might I use instruments to create the scene?"
I read through one line at a time and asked "which instrument sounds like rocks in the river (water flowing/rain falling etc.)?"
The students were very excited and one by one they picked out instruments that sounded like each aspect of the river. I gave them that instrument and asked them to play it when I read that part. As a class, we came up with a beautiful background instrumentation that sounded like a river.
YOUR TURN! I divided them into groups and gave each group a different Haiku from the book. They all discussed the landform and picked instruments that sounded like each part.
Listen to two of the haikus on my blogs music player :)
This lesson was a great way to introduce the students to instruments and to help them think critically about the various aspects of landforms and causes of change.
Lesson plan:
