Poetry and rhythm

Several times throughout the course of the school year, Gayle has invited me to come see something exciting she is doing with her students. I love these opportunities. Gayle is a wealth of ideas, she loves her students and teaching them, and they love coming to music.

At Easter time, Gayle did this lesson that gave the students experience with notation and playing drums in layers. As you read on, notice how much is being taught from the DESK standards in this one lesson. (Sometimes when we teach a concept, we're specifically labeling that concept. Other times, we're simply giving students experience with that concept, so that later they'll be able to label it. Experience preceeds understanding.)

In small groups, the students were instructed to solve the following: place the word strips in order to create a poem. There are 4 lines, the first word is "Easter," and the lines marked with an "X" rhyme. 

Once the words were in place, the students figured out how the notation fit with the words. The students were all actively involved and engaged in the problem solving process.

For the last part of the class period, the students played phrases from the poem, layered together, on hand drums. This could be adapted a lot of ways to your students ability levels (unison, round, adding in different instruments, etc.). The students had a blast playing the rhythms on the drums. Gayle rotated them so they got to try different rhythms with different size drums (different timbres), and the students worked really hard to play together and start and stop appropriately.