Marvelous Music Map Making!

Lesson #5: Sally Go Round the Sun

Yesterday I made another visit out to Spanish Oaks Elementary! Our lesson today was centered around the short and simple song "Sally Go Round the Sun." I was taught this lesson by Dr. Brittney May in one of my Music Education classes at BYU. So instead of being the student, this time I was the teacher!

Song + Movement

The students gathered in as large of a circle as the classroom would permit and I taught them this song. The lyrics are:

Sally go round the sun,

Sally go round the moon, 

Sally go round the chimney pot

every afternoon--boom!

After singing through the song once, I picked three students to stand in the middle of the circle. Each student held a piece of paper with one of the objects in the song drawn on it (a sun, a moon, a chimney pot). I sang the song and while I sang, walked around each student (going "round" the sun, moon, and chimney pot). When I got to "boom!", I was standing back in my original spot in the circle of students. 

Next the students got to sing and move along with me. I chose children by birthday months to make sure everyone got a turn in the middle.

Mini-Preposition Lesson:

Next I suggested to the class that maybe we could substitute a different word for "round." One child suggested "over." So then the students holding the objects laid down on the floor while other students sang:

Sally go over the sun,

Sally go over the moon,

Sally go over the chimney pot

every afternoon--boom!

 One student correctly identified "round" and "over" as a preposition! If we had more time, we would have done more playing around with changing out prepositions.

Making the Map

Students then sat in their circles and I reminded them of two weeks ago when we all followed the Harry Potter music map. I told them today they would be creating a map kind of like that using "Sally Go Round the Sun."

Each student received a whiteboard to write on, a piece of paper, and a marker. I showed them how to draw an 'X' in the top left corner of their paper--this is where their map would begin. They would start their map there and then would move their marker continuously on the paper until the song ended. We practiced once with tracing our finger and then did the real thing. Later on, the students traced their maps and then added in pictures of the sun, the moon, and the chimney pot in accordance to where they happened in the song. Here are some examples of what the kids came up with:

Switch-er-roo

Next the students were to swap papers with their neighbors and would trace their neighbors' maps. This was a lesson for me. I instructed the students to pass their papers one person to the right. This was much more of a difficult task than I anticipated it would be: I learned to always make sure everyone knows which way is right to begin with. :) Eventually the kids were able to trace another map besides their own!

Conclusion:

The students learned a new song, did movement to the song, and then created a music map for it. Creating the map required that they listened to the general melody and shape of the melody. We briefly talked as a class how the maps they made were different from one another. Although all the students heard the same song being sung, different people interpret and visualize music differently--in a way that makes the most sense to them.

M&Ms: Math & Music

Lesson #4: Addition, Body Percussion, & Instruments

Today at Spanish Oaks Elementary we began with reviewing 4-digit addition. I wrote three math problems on the board, and the students solved these problems in their math notebooks. For each problem, a student came to the white board and showed how he or she had solved the problem. 

Then I asked for the students' help to identify the:

• thousands column
• hundreds column
• tens column
• ones column

As the students identified which column was which, I put a box around that column.

Each column, I explained, would be assigned a different body percussion. As now shown below:

In this way, the answer to every math problem becomes a kind of song or composition. This one would consist of 3 snaps, 2 claps, 1 pat, and 6 stomps. I modeled how this should be done--keeping an even beat and counting out loud while we snapped/clapped/patted/stomped.

After the kids got the hang of this, we then performed the whole equation (1862 + 1354 = 3216) with the same body percussion as before.

Group Activity:

Next the class was split into four groups. Each group was assigned a different addition problem to first solve and then to practice as a group to soon perform in front of the class. They did this!

Body Percussion to Instruments:

I then erased the snaps/claps/pats/stomps markings I had written on the whiteboard and replaced them with these words: claves, triangles, sand blocks, and Chinese balls. What do these words all have in common? They are all percussion instruments!

The instruments were handed out to all of the students (they got to play their instruments as much as they liked while this was going on). After going over rules about the instruments, I explained how now each column would be played by one specific instrument. To simplify things, on the whiteboard I drew symbols that represented each of the instruments (clave=stars, triangles=circles, sand blocks=squares, Chinese balls=hearts).

We then played the equations using our instruments!

It was a fun time!

Music Standards Met:

3.M.P.8; 3.M.P.11

Music Mapping

 Lesson #3: A Music Map!

This week at Spanish Oaks elementary we began exploring music maps!

For our first activity, I showed the class I drawing I had done of my neighborhood. I pointed out places in my neighborhood that were important to me and that I had put little stars next to (my house, my friends' house, my church). The students then had about five minutes to create a map of their own neighborhood.

Class Discussion:

Then as a class we talked about some of the purposes of a map. Some of the things we came up with were:

• Maps show others where to go (could help a friend get to my house)
• Maps have symbols on them that represent something (little boxes represent houses, stores, and so forth)
• Maps show distance (e.g., how far away my house is from the neighborhood park)
• Maps aren't always 100% accurate--they are interpretations
• Maps show a specific place or location (or a specific neighborhood)

The students' maps were all unique and creative in their own way. Here is just a couple of them!

The Music Map:

Next I hung up on the board what is called a music map. This map "maps" out a song--using symbols, lines, and shapes to depict the different melodies throughout the song. I stood by the music map and as the song played, I traced my finger along each of the lines and symbols. The class was silent during this process! 

The song we used is from the movie soundtrack "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." (I chose this song and created this map in mind of this class--their classroom decoration has a Harry Potter theme.) Here is a link to the song as well as a close-up picture of the music map itself. 

"Book 2: Prologue and the Escape from the Dursleys"

Then I invited the kids to all put their fingers in the air and trace along with me.

Next I asked what the kids noticed about this map. Many students shared musical insights that they had noticed while listening and watching the map.

Some of their observations included:

• The map followed the melody in the song
• Symbols/lines in the map showed if sounds were short/long, slow/fast, and soft/loud
• Some parts were repeated in the song
• Lines showed whether the melody went up or down

Tie-In:

At this point, we revisited the class discussion we had earlier about the purposes of map. We talked about how this music map, although visually looks different than the neighborhood maps they drew, has the same functions as a regular map.

Music maps also can:

• Show a listener where the melody goes throughout a song
• Contain symbols that represent sounds, timbres, dynamics, tempos, and melodies
• Show distance (how far away different themes in the song are from one another)
• Are not 100% accurate--are interpretations!
• Show a specific song (using this map with another song would not be effective)

For the last activity, we listened to the song again and the kids were told to stand up and to use their bodies to follow along with what the music was doing (instead of just tracing with their finger). I traced for them and they did some movement (some of which was quite entertaining to watch)!

Music Standards Met:

3.M.P.5; 3.M.R.1