Submitted by Suzanne DeVene, Willard, Ohio
Idea posted December 4, 2002
I've had a fun time with my 6th grade classes this week! In my quest to find different ways to explain musical concepts, I used the following activities...
1. FORM - We sang Dancin' On The Rooftop (from Music K-8, Vol. 2, No. 4, also available as a Singles Reproducible Kit) and discovered the form was ABACABA coda.
Before class, I had strung up a clothes line, and now, out came the laundry basket full of clothes. (Their curiosity was aroused!!) I told them we were going to show the form by hanging up my laundry. I hung up a white shirt and told the class this was the A section. Next up was a yellow T-shirt, and then I asked the class what I should hang next (another white shirt). We proceeded to pick clothing out of the basket that would fit the form (Hawaiian pants was C! I forgot a scarf which was going to be the coda, though). In every class someone noticed the pattern of white shirts, allowing me the opportunity to teach them the term rondo form. I took off the laundry and had different students come up and hang clothing in other form patterns... AB, ABA, AABA, etc. They seemed to grab onto the concept of form by seeing it, and it certainly 'grabbed' their attention for a while!
2. D.C. al Fine, D.S. al Fine, and D.S. al Coda - The lesson began with the definition of each of these terms and the fact that they are musical 'road signs.' In order not to get 'lost' in the music, you have to know them! Yeah, well, you know how much they were probably listening to all this! So... I got them on their feet and had them stand in a semi-circle so they could see everyone in the class. I gave a sign that said 'Beginning of song' to the first person in the line, and I gave a D.C. al Fine sign to the last person in the line. A sign with Fine on it went to a person somewhere in the middle. I told them they were all the human notes of a song, and we were going to follow the song from beginning to end.
I pointed to the 'Beginning of song' and scanned all the way around to the D.C. al Fine. "This LOOKS like the end of the song, but it's not - this sign tells us to go back and repeat. Where are we supposed to go?" (Back to the beginning.) So I point again from the beginning and asked them where I should stop - and most of them knew to stop at FINE. We did the same thing with D.S. al Fine (I added a "sign" sign) and D.S. al Coda (adding a 'To Coda' sign and a Coda sign).
Then I chose two students to be the 'song travelers' and one of the signs (D.C. al Fine, D.S. al Fine, D.S. al Coda) was displayed. They looked at it and 'traveled' along our song line, going back and forth as needed between the different symbols. When they got 'lost' or went the wrong direction, the class helped them out. We did this with all three symbols, and hopefully, they will remember the difference until the next time I see them!! By eliminating the 'clutter' of the musical page and focusing on the symbols, I THINK they understood the idea better. Oh... and the best part? They were really glad to sit down after this!!! :)
*Of course, this is appropriate for much younger classes, but this year I'm into my 'WACKY' music teacher mode to motivate my 6th graders into learning and retaining SOMETHING!!