October 19th lesson Plan

Audio selections: the sound of a thunderstorm, the sound of the beach, the
sound of a volcano
National Core Standards: analyzing, improvisation, performing in a group,
evaluating and
refining
Objectives:
Skill based: students are continuing to develop their aural analytical
skills. In this lesson, the students will analyze the raw sounds of nature and
improvise music that is representative of what they hear. Students will also
have the chance to be student conductors and in real time, refine the
performance of the other students.
Knowledge based: students will be more aware of the music all
around them in the form of nature sounds.
Vocabulary to be included: Timbre, contour, rhythm, dynamics, tempo
Planned teaching strategies to produce learning outcomes:
This lesson is centered on the idea that music can be derived from all sounds
around us. In this case, we will be exploring how nature sounds can be made
into a musical performance.
We will begin with a warm up activity: (this is related to an overarching
objective of music literacy) each student will be given a rhythm that is
associated with their names.
Circle improvisation activity: Students will be arranged in a circle so
everyone can see each other. Each student will have an instrument that they
will use for one sound concept round.
For the first sound concept of a rainstorm, a teacher will be the conductor in
the center of the group. The conductor will cue in various instruments to
come in based on what timbres they wish to hear. They also dictate what
dynamic level the student should play. The conductor can stop the sound of
have the sound continue. The teacher conductor will model various gestures
and perhaps vocalize what they want in tandem with the gesture. This serves
as modeling for the student conductors to come.

After the teacher round, the teachers will ask a few guided questions such
as: what decisions did the conductor have to make to create the soundscape
of a thunderstorm? When you came in, how did you play and why did you
play that way?
The next step is to have a student conductor run the next round of music
making.
Questions to ask this conductor would be what did you hear? What would
you do differently to bring the ensemble more in line with your aural
expectations? (Scaffold using vocabulary as necessary)
We will run several more rounds with student conductors, each exploring
different natural sound concepts.
Assessment component: We are assessing their aural skills by listening to
how they improvise nature sounds. We will also ask students of note to
justify the musical decisions they made. When we use scaffolding questions,
we will be assessing their retention of the vocabulary we discussed in our
last lesson.

Extension: Ask students to listen to the sounds all around them the next
time they are outside and think about how all the sounds come together to
create a beautiful natural symphony.