Carnival of the animals

So this week we have been learning about Camille St. Saens and the Carnival of the Animals. I have enjoyed myself this week. We've had some great conversations about the music and I absolutely love the smiles it brings when I say try being a slow moving turtle or a kangaroo. My kindergarten students were just so adorable. Loved that I had a 1st grade boy ask "how the composer made it actually sound like the animals". This lead to a great discussion. Also had a few ask why there was no singing, another great discussion.

Grades k-2 have used a PowerPoint presentation to learn the piece and each animal got them engaged with their listening ears. We used our bodies not our mouths. My 1st and 2nd graders at Holden are loving their Carnival of the Animals coloring book.
My 3rd graders have been working on a few worksheets. 2 groups did one called "what did you hear" where they had to record pitch(high or low), dynamics(loud or soft, and what instruments they hear. 2 groups are making predictions for each animal and then recording what they actually hear. Then comparing their answers.

Little background on the composer: (yes the kids learned all this)
Camille St Saens was a French composer. He shares a birthday with me: we were both born on October 9th. He had a lot of piano playing friends and he himself began playing piano before he was 3. His Carnival of the Animals consists of 14 short pieces all about a differnt animal. It is like a trip to the zoo.

Is anyone wondering about 4th grade: they did a little bit with this piece but we are in our recorder unit right now. We've started our recorder karate unit. We learn a song in class and then students play by themselves for a belt. We have a chart hanging in the room with results and hopefully will have a bulletin board soon for data. We've learned the notes BAG.

Overall, it's been a great week!