Submitted by Meris Ruzow, Clifton Park, New York
Idea posted July 16, 2002
We start VERY easy with form with music that you can't MISS noticing the difference. In fact, I give all students (and this worked from 1st-5th grade) pretty colored scarves.
For one of the pieces, we started with an introduction, and they just had to hold the scarf at both ends and make little circles (in rhythm of course!) until "A" started. For "A," we made very large "number 8" movements holding only one end of the scarf. For "A1," we did the same movement, but used a different hand to symbolize that the theme was the same, but another instrument was playing it - slight variation. Then for "B," we used a completely different up & down movement. The tempo was also faster, so they could pick this out easily. Then it went back to "A," etc.
They loved the scarves. Next we will do something a little harder and they will be put into groups so that one group will actually be the "A, main theme" and one will be "B," etc.