Create/Compose

Creating for Elementary students is so important and teaches so many concepts at the same time. Allowing the students to create and compose their own "works of art," not only is rewarding to the students but is quite gratifying as a Teacher as well. This Unit will go along with my lessons on Creating and Composing for my 3-6th grade students in General Music Class. I will give the students several opportunities to write and explore different styles of music as well as different instruments to use while composing their very own pieces of music. I will use several examples and show them myself by writing my own 8 measure song. We will discuss the different forms and styles of music that they can use and how music must make sense to the ear as well as to the eye when notating the music. I will again give examples of form and maybe add a story that we can read aloud and then add music to, and I would maybe use Aesop's fables here to show how the words of music are like telling a story, or even put music to a story we already know like "The Rabbit and and Hare," or one of the lessons on OER in performing arts where they can read scripts and act out a story, just to get an idea of telling a story in music. We will do some rhythm reading and play some rhythm games along with some notation games we already use in class. Then I want to give them as much room to create and compose on their own as I can, I want them to be creative without too much direction and let (mostly the older ones) them explore in their groups on what to do to become a Composer.