One of my absolute favorite moments in first grade is when we get to explore contrast in music with the piece "Carnival of the Animals" by French composer Camille Saint-Saens. This piece is full of friendly animals, but they don't always act like you expect because Mr. Saint-Saens' students asked him to write a musical joke! Over the last 3 weeks we have met 7 different music friends: Roger the Lion, Pokey the Turtle, Jack the Donkey, Robin the Bird, Ellie the Elephant, Kanga the Kangaroo, and a swan that was sadly MIA.
Each week we focused on a different characteristic of music covering steady beat, tempo, pitch, and texture. Most turtles don't love dancing, but Pokey is an expert! His favorite song is the Can Can by Offenbach but its too quick for him to keep up. Luckily, Mr. Saint-Saens made him his own turtle tempo version. He taught them how to dance like turtles and then students led each other through their own turtle dances. I was amazed at the focus and creativity of them as they danced along. Students were leading with different parts of the body, using multiple levels, large and small motions...truly a beauty to watch.
Ellie is a fantastic dancer as well but her favorite is the waltz. Having a trunk makes waltzing extra fun since you can swing it. We learned that a waltz has a pattern of 3 and how to sway in time with it. Our trunks showed the duration of each meter and that it wasn't a step-and-freeze movement. Our swan taught us how music can be smooth and gentle and what better way to show that elegance than with ribbon streamers?
We had tons of fun meeting some of the different music pals that live in the music room and letting them lead us through this musical adventure!