MUED 380 Leadership Portfolio Project - Unit Design Venne 1

Our Earth:
A Fourth Grade Music Unit Exploring Nature and How We Can Care for It.

Katie Venne
MUED 380: Music in Elementary School
Fall 2017
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Context Statement:
The school I am designing this unit for is located within Rockingham County. The county is a decent
size with 92,000 residents. The county is predominantly white, with Spanish as a rising language
among residents. High schools in Rockingham have an average graduation rate of 90%, with many
graduates going onto Rockingham Community College. A majority of the student population is male,
with the female percentage just a few digits below. 38,380 adults in Rockingham County were
employed as of 2015, most of which in management, business, and science.
In the past decade, Arts Council of the Valley has donated almost $350,000 to support community
based initiatives and the arts in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, demonstrating the Valleys
dedication and appreciation for the arts and student involvement.
Community involvement is especially evident in Rockingham County schools, with grants often
requested and accepted for students for projects within the community and weeks dedicated to
raising awareness about issues within the community. On the specific school web page for which
this unit is designed, pictures of the school community demonstrate the school value of
involvement. The school mission statement reads: To provide a safe learning environment that
promotes academic success and fosters mutual respect within our school community.

Transfer Goals

Students will be able to use their learning to address global/societal/ community issues
with music.
Students will be able to use their learning to express interests and ideas through music.

Acquisition Goals

Students will know . . . (knowledges) Students will be skilled at . . . (skills)

How to perform rhythms of increased
complexity
How to identify dynamic changes
How to create and compose music within
certain guidelines
Organizing and developing artistic ideas
and work
Synthesizing and relating knowledge and
personal experiences to make art
Singing a varied repertoire of songs alone
and with others
Playing a variety of pitched and non-
pitched instruments alone and with others
Identifying elements of music through
listening
Exploring music through movement and
sound
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Theme

The theme for this unit is that nature is important and we should care for it. It is important when
related to contemporary music learning because a lot of contemporary musicians use music to
call attention to issues they find important. A current rising issue is the human carbon footprint
on the world, and the school I visited and taught in this semester is not only passionate about the
same issue, but that their students are involved in the community as well. Through responding,
playing, singing, creating, and performing, the students will explore different parts of nature and
the different ways that they can be cared for.

Overview of Unit

Day 1: The students will...

Read the book Desert Night, Desert Day, by Anthony D. Fredericks
Discussion of animals within the book
Animal guessing game with movement

*Day 2: The students will

Create a desert Activity
(Movement and creating sound)
Discussion of quiet and loud animals

*Day 3: The students will

Plate activity
Discussion of rhythms in book (animal names)
Matching game with animal names

*Day 4: The students will

Learn song about caring for the earth
Matching animal names with rhythms in song
Re-write song with animal names to clap out

Day 5: The students will

Continue Learning song with melody
Animal passing pattern game
Match sections of song with quiet and loud animals

Day 6: The students will

Create verse about how to care for the earth with animal rhythms and dynamics to add to
original song

(Unit intention: to perform and bring awareness to the community)

* Asterisk indicates days with complete experience designs in this document.

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Experience Design for Day #2

Overview

The students will continue exploring music and movement and exploring creative ways to create sound and
music while learning about animals in the desert.

I Can Statements (learning goals)

I can organize and developing artistic ideas and work.

I can play a variety of pitched and non-pitched instruments alone and with others.
I can explore music through movement and sound

Materials

Desert Night, Desert Day by Anthony D. Fredericks

Instruments/ items in the classroom
Images of animals
Two circles representing the day and the night in the desert
Online beat-making source: https://splice.com/sounds/beatmaker

Detailed Process

Time Required: 1. The students will repeat a melody after the teacher.
30 minutes Desert night, desert day. Animals come out to play.
2. The students will discuss the animals in the book that was read last class, specifically
the animals awake in the daytime in the desert and how they might sound (quiet or
loud).
3. The students will create a desert. The students will get in a circle and to the beat of a
song
- The students will say an animal name from the book around the circle.
- The students will then repeat the first step, this time whispering the name of the
animal while making a movement to represent the animal.
- The students will then make a sound using their body to represent the animal
around the circle.
- The students will spread around the classroom and find instruments/items that
they can use to make sound to represent their chosen animal.
4. On the board, two circles (one representing the night and one representing the day)
will be used for students to create a desert.
5. The music, the students will begin playing their chosen instrument/ item when their
chosen animal is dragged into the daytime circle by the teacher.
6. Steps 2-5 will be repeated, this time using the animals that come out to play during the
night in the desert.
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Assessments

Develop specific assessment mechanisms to help you chart the growth of individual students related to each
specific learning goal (I can statement). Actually make some assessments in these forms:
Checklist: I can assess students understanding of movement and music by observing students ability to
complete all steps of the experience.
Performance assessment: I can assess student understanding of turning movement into music by
observing student transitions into sound in part four of step three. .

Extensions:

I would extend this activity by having students take turns creating a song by letting volunteers drag animals
into different circles instead of only the teacher leading the class.

Adaptations

Size I can modify the size by making the size of the images and text larger.

Color I can modify the color by making the pictures and words different colors.

Pacing I can modify the pacing by repeating step three in the experience design multiple times for
student understanding.

Modality I can modify the modalities within my lesson by having students sing a sound that represents
their animal instead of using items/ instruments.
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Include any visual aids or manipulatives here.

NIGHT DAY
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Experience Design for Day #3

Overview

The students will explore the rhythms in the book Desert Night, Desert Day by Anthony D. Fredericks and learn
about rhythms using eighth and quarter notes interchangeably.

I Can Statements (learning goals)

I can perform rhythms of increased complexity.

I can Identifying elements of music through listening

Materials

6 paper plates for each group (as needed)

10 popsicle sticks for each group (as needed)
PowerPoint with slides of rhythmic patterns and quotes from book for lesson and game

Detailed Process

Time Required 1. The students will get into groups and be given six paper plates and 10 popsicle sticks.
50 minutes 2. The students will lay out the plates in front of them, making three rows of two.
3. The students will clap their hands to a beat and then tap each plate to the beat.
4. The teacher will clap a rhythmic pattern while the students tap the plate.
(quarter note, 2 eighth notes)
5. The students will discuss the differences between the two beats.
6. The students will mark their plates with the about of sounds in each beat with the
popsicle sticks. (3)
7. The students will repeat the same process with the remaining two rhythmic patterns.
(2 eighth notes, quarter note) (four eighth notes)
8. The teacher will write quotes from the book Desert Night, Desert Day by Anthony D.
Fredericks on the board and clap the rhythmic pattern for the students.
9. The students will listen to the rhythmic patterns in the quotes and decide which
pattern on the paper plates is being clapped.
10. The students will play a matching game with the animal names and the rhythmic
patterns.
The students will stay in their previous groups and clap out animal names from the
book the teacher places on the board the first group to raise their hand with the
correct choice of rhythmic pattern gets a point. The group who wins gets a prize!
(pencil, sticker, etc.)
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Assessments

Self-assessments: I can assess students by asking the class at the end of the experience to hold up an
amount of fingers (1-5) rating how hard they think the activity was.
Performance assessments: I can assess student understanding of rhythmic patterns by observing their
ability to participate in the animal name matching game. .

Extensions:

I can extend the experience by creating handouts that have the animal names on them to cut out and glue onto a
blank piece of paper for students to make their own rhythmic pattern combinations to share with the class.

Adaptations

Size I can modify size in the experience by changing the size of the rhythmic patterns and words on
the board for the students.

Color I can modify the experience using color by changing the color of the rhythms and quotes to
match each other for a clearer understanding.
I can also modify the experience using color by having students color their popsicle sticks
different colors depending on the value of the note.

Pacing If there is confusion about the difference between eighth notes and quarter notes, I can modify
the experience to spend more time working on only a single quarter note or two eighth notes
instead of combining them.

Modality Instead of clapping out rhythms, I can modify the experience using modality by having
students jump to the rhythm or use other means of determining the rhythm.

Include any visual aids or manipulatives here.

Plates example: Matching game example:

Tiny owls

a.

b.

c.
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Experience Design for Day #4

Overview

The students will learn a song about the earth and caring for it by listening to it, discussing it, and matching
previously learned rhythms to it.

I Can Statements (learning goals)

I can identify elements of music through listening.

I can create and compose music within certain guidelines.
I can organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

Materials

Video of I am the Earth by Glyn Lehmann performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPXXD-

LbeA
PowerPoint of quotes from the song
PowerPoint with song and blanks to fill in the animal names and rhythms

Detailed Process

Time Required 1. The students will listen to the song I am the Earth by Glyn Lehmann.
30 minutes 2. The students will clap to the beat of the song while they listen and sing the song.
3. The students will discuss the meaning of the song and what they heard.
4. The students with analyze quotes from the lyrics.
5. The students will discuss the rhythms of the song and the similarities to the animal
name rhythms.
6. The students will match each animal name with the rhythms in the song.
7. The students will clap out the rhythms in the song using the animal names as a
reference.

Assessments

Checklists: I can assess student understanding of rhythms by creating a checklist of rhythmic abilities
that students should be able to demonstrate.
Performance assessments: I can assess student understanding of the rhythmic patterns by their ability to
transfer the rhythmic animal patterns over to the song I am the Earth.

Extensions:

I can extend the activity by creating movements to the music to be representative of the rhythms in the song.
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Adaptations

Size I can modify the experience using size by changing the size of the quotes and rhythms from
the song.

Color I can modify the experience using color by changing the color of the lyrics and the rhythms to
match each other to allow for clearer understanding.

Pacing While I originally planned for the passing game to be in the next lesson activities, I could
modify my pacing by playing the cup activity in this class period so that students can practice
finding the beat to the new piece more easily.

Modality Instead of only clapping the rhythms in the song, I can modify the modalities within the
activity by having students move to the rhythms with their whole body or vocally count out
the rhythms.

Include any visual aids or manipulatives here.

PowerPoint Lyric and rhythm example:

I am the river flowing

Hawks are soaring, overhead