Creative Lessons

2. (30 points) Create a reflection post describing at least five ways and situations for involving students in making creative choices in music. 

• First, decide whether your activities apply to elementary school general music classes or to rehearsals of performing ensembles at the middle and high school level.
• Second, describe each creative activity in enough detail so that your instructor (that’s me) will have a clear idea how you plan to teach the creative experience.  In other words, it will not be enough to write, “I will hand out Orff instruments and we’ll make up a rondo,” or “Each student in the band will improvise four measures of music.”   Instead, describe in detail the procedures that you plan to use and how the students will be involved in making and applying creative decisions.
• Submit your Reflection Post in the Assignments tool.
• View the Rubric uses to score your post.

1) I have gathered five lesson plans that encourage creativity in the general elementary music classroom.  The first lesson plan is called "I Kissed a Frog" which utilizes a poem created by Jack Prelutsky.  (You can visit jackprelutsky.com to see his work!  He has really creative an imaginative poems).  For copyright reasons, I cannot list the poem for you but I ended up setting the poem "A Princess Laments" to music and created the following lesson plan:

¯   Students echo Do, Re, Mi, Sol patterns in order to set up the pattern of the melody.

¯   Students gradually build up to the melody of “I kissed a frog.”

¯   Students transfer to words.

¯   Students discuss the story and what movie recently portrayed the story (Answer = The Princess and the Frog).

¯   Students sing the song with good posture.

¯   Students discuss an instrument that would be appropriate to add to the rests – vibraslap, guiro, or hand drum that sounds like a frog!

¯   Teacher has one Student add the instrument on the rest to portray the croaking of the frog.

¯   Students learn the ostinato pattern on the Orff instruments.

¯   Students review allegro vs. andante.

¯   Students determine whether or not the song sounds better allegro or andante.

¯   Students decode the 5 rhythm patterns on the powerpoint:

¯   Students break in pairs and are handed a baggy containing the 5 pattern cards.Students are then tasked to create an 8 beat pattern using 4 of the patterns.

¯   Students practice saying their patterns together.

¯   Students speak their patterns as the B section to the song and perform AB (all groups at the same time) A.

¯   Students add 2 levels of body percussion (snaps, claps, stomps, taps, etc) to their patterns.

¯   Students perform ABACADA (each contrasting section is 1 partnership with body percussion) – create a rondo.

¯   Students have to work together as a class to help the princess turn back into a human - game.

¯   S play the interactive powerpoint game:

This lesson promotes creativity by having students create their own body percussion patterns using a structured environment.  They are given specific instructions with some creative freedom and the class created a rondo form.

2) The second lesson I am sharing today is one that gets Kindergarten students to create.  We do a lot of vocal explorations in Kindergarten. For example:

Students will follow the line with their voices using whatever vowel I ask them to use, such as an "oo" vowel.  We talk a lot about high versus low.  This gets the students comfortable with their voices.  In order to add creating to the classroom, I have students create their own vocal explorations.  That particular example was from a pirate themed vocal exploration that I created.  We talked about what sounds pirate might make, what items a pirate might have, and what a pirate might wear.  Then, after completely the vocal explorations, students are given a piece of paper with a pirate in one corner and a red "X" in another corner.  Students then have to create their own vocal exploration connecting the pirate to the red "X" so he can find his treasure.  

3) The next lesson I am going to share that utilizes creativity in the music class is one for recorders.  I follow the recorder karate curriculum.  Students learn a song, pass the song, and earn a "colored belt" for their recorder.  Last year I had many students pass the black belt long before their classmates did.  In order to give them something to do, I thought of new belts that went beyond Black Belt.  One of them was a silver belt.  The students had to compose their own song using certain parameters and then perform it for their classmates in order to earn their Silver Belt.

We also did other composition activities throughout the semester they spend learning recorder.  We did one for groundhogs day, valentines day, and more.

Here is the lesson plan from the Valentine's Day composition:

¯   Students will be given a Valentine’s Day poem written out with the rhythmic notation written above it.

¯   Students will read the poem using rhythm syllables - Ta’s and Ti’s.

¯   Students will then read the poem on words.

¯   Students will be tasked with composing a melody for the poem using the notes B, A, G, and E on the recorder.

¯   Students will need to know the note names, the proper fingerings, and which line or space the notes are on in the treble clef staff.

¯   Students will notate the melody on the given staff using the proper rhythmic markings in addition to the note names.

¯   Students will play their melody for the class.

All students had the same poem with the same rhythms.  That way, the entire class knew the parameters of the meter and the rhythm.  However, students could be creative by choosing their own melody using the pitches they had learned so far: B, A, G, and E.  

4) The following lesson plan I did not create.  I went to a workshop this past year by Randy and Jeff who do the Game Plan curriculum.  I'm not going to share all the details on it since it is not my lesson to give.  But it's very cute.  They created a poem called "N-E-W-S" that stands for "North, East, West, South."  It's a two measure poem that utilizes a syncopated rhythm in the second measure.  The teacher presents rhythm cards with the rhythms from poem to the students who then speak them on rhythm syllables in different combinations.  The teacher then refines them to the rhythm of the poem: Ta, Ta, Ta, Ta: Syn-co-pa, Ti-Ti, Ta!  Afterwards, the students add the text.

Students then pat the rhythm and transfer the rhythm to the barred instruments that are set in any pentatonic key.  After the students get the hang of playing the rhythm while speaking the poem, students stop speaking the poem aloud and only play the rhythm.  

Students then extend to a 2-part canon at 4 beat intervals by breaking up into woods vs. metals.  

The remaining students who are not on the barred instruments form groups of 4 or 5.  They each choose a card with either North, East, West, or South on it.  The groups decide how to spell their word exactly two times.  It can be done simply or more complex but they have only 2 measures to do it.  After they get that down and practice the rhythms, they add body percussion to their creations.  

Students perform this as a rondo - the A section being the poem played on the barred instruments and the other sections being the created patterns by the different groups.

This worked really well with my students who had a ball coming up with ways to say the different directions!

5)The last lesson I am sharing today is a lesson that is simple.  Students in the lower grades complete a class composition using a grid.  There is a grid on the board and students come up with symbols to represent the different instruments (a circle for a hand drum, a bell for a cow bell, etc).  Students create a class composition emphasizing the use of patterns.  Students are then broken into groups to play the instruments on the grid.  It is a steady beat composition and students play their instrument when the squares arrive.

Students are broken into pairs or trios and given a grid (the grid can be anywhere from 3 by 3 squares to 5 by 5 squares).   The students create their own composition using the same symbols that were created earlier.  Students then practice the composition with their groups and then present it to class.  This is a great way to get the students to compose without having to worry about the notation!