My classroom teacher asked me to emphasize the changes that landforms go through because that is what students struggle with the most. I decided to create a lesson that focused on change and formation.
We started out by listening to "Flight of the Alps" from the Planet Earth II soundtrack.
"This song is about mountains forming. Listen carefully to the song and tell me how you think they were formed. Remember to use the clues in the music that we talked about"
After listening to the song, the students each explained what they thought formed the mountains. "It was a volcano because it was really loud". "It was uplift because the music kept getting higher".
We repeated the same activity with the song "The Himalayas" from the same Planet Earth soundtrack.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH
Come to the floor and sit in a circle! I sang the rocky mountain song several times replacing the last 2 lines with 'doo doo doo'. Sing along when you catch on! After they got it, I showed them the words:
"Here is your project. With your group, choose a way that mountains are formed and write it in your song".
I showed the following example of the version I wrote about how canyons are formed.
After showing my example, I gave the students time to write their own renditions of "Rocky Mountain" telling about the way of formation that they chose.
This was a fun, simple lesson that was a great gateway lesson for our final project.
Lesson Plan:
