The Nutcracker Ballet & Tchaikovsky Unit Study
This new 2009 Version contains more lapbook materials and resources!
Nutcracker Introduction Lesson Plan
Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God. Psalm 43:3-4
Mozart Theme Unit - Winner of the Non-Fiction Category of the Homeschool Share Blast 2009 Contest!! I'm so excited!! :D Thank you Ami and the whole HS staff! Thank you also to Debra at NotebookingPages.com and the "Let's Explore" team for the wonderful prizes!! I hope people will enjoy learning about my favorite composer, Herr Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart!
These are files I have used with other units, but I thought would work well with this one, too.
Note Values Accordion Book Note Values Accordion Book Answers
Note & Rest Value Chart Rhythm Flap Books
Music Math Game - Whole Numbers Music Math Game - Fractions
Count the Beats File Folder Game
Cards 1 Cards 2 Blank Cards Pocket Gameboard
Time Signatures & Math File Folder Game
Conducting Patterns & What is a Conductor? Mini Books
Instrument Families of the Orchestra Tab Book
String Family and Piano Mini Books
String Family Lapbook Unit at Squidoo - Lessons, lapbook mini books, games, videos, links, etc.
Brass Family Lapbook Unit at Squidoo - Brass Family Lapbook Unit mini books here.
Woodwind Family Lapbook Unit Lessons, lapbook mini books, games.
And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. Genesis 1:24
"The Carnival of the Animals"
Elephant Unit Study & Lapbook Here is an elephant unit I wrote for Homeschool Share to use with this if you like. My son loves elephants!
These activities may be spread over several lesson times depending on the age of your child and how much music experience they have already had.
Materials:
Music & Videos of :Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens
Chickens, Horses, Tortoises, Elephants
Sheet Music: Free Download
CD: Carnival of the Animals & Peter and the Wolf
Book & CD Set: Carnival of the Animals
Lapbook & Notebook Materials:
Vocabulary Cards
Elephant Lyrics
String & Piano Mini Books
Composition Page
Pitch Experiment Lab Reports 1
Pitch Experiment Lab Reports 2
Composer Notebook Page
Composer Lapbook Mini Book
France Mini Book
Carnival of the Animals Drawing Book
What is a Waltz? Mini Book
Time Signature Math File Folder Game
Rhythm Mini Books
Rhythm Pattern Card Games
Music Vocabulary:
allegro – fast
a tempo – go back to the original speed of the piece
andante – moderately slow tempo of a piece, from the Italian andare – to walk
composer – one who creates or makes up new music
form – sections of a song and how they are put together
harmony – a group of notes which blend nice sounds with the melody
melody – the tune of the song, the main, recognizable part of music
ostinato – a repeated pattern, usually with a rhythm
pitch – highness and lowness of notes and sounds
ritardando – gradually slowing down the speed
rhythm – different durations of notes put together in groups, some may be accented
suite – a collection of musical pieces that are grouped together
tempo – the rate of speed of a piece
ternary form – a three section piece of music, section A plays, then B section which is different, then A section again
theme – a repeating musical pattern that occurs in a piece, theme may be varied as it is repeated
timbre – also called tone color – the various qualities of a sound making it unique from other sounds
time signature or meter – numerical markings at the beginning of a piece to tell how many beats are in each measure, and what kind of note gets one beat
waltz – a fancy dance for two people with the music having three beats per measure and the first beat is stressed
Vocabulary Pockets & Cards
Listen to The Elephant from The Carnival of the Animals by Camille St.- Saens. Listen quietly or with a soft steady beat tapping. Do not tell students the name of the piece, but do tell them it comes from a musical suite called The Carnival of the Animals. Ask them to think about what type of animal the composer is trying to sound like.
Tempo
Musicians use Italian words to describe musical characteristics of a piece of music. The word for speed is tempo. Does the tempo of this music move fast or slow? This tempo is called andante which means moving slowly. Listen again and try to find where the tempo changes. It slows down a little in the middle (ritardando), and then resumes it’s original speed (a tempo).
Timbre
What timbres or instruments do you hear in the piece? (Piano and string bass.) See below links.
Melody
The melody is played by the string bass. The string bass is the largest and lowest sounding member of the string family. Instruments in an orchestra are grouped in families by certain characteristics they share. There are five families of instruments – strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, and keyboard. Members of the orchestral string family include violin, viola, cello, and bass. They are all shaped in a similar way, are made of wood, have four strings, and can be plucked by the fingers or played with a bow.
To help learn the melody and other musical concepts of the piece, print out Elephant Lyrics to sing along with the string bass. (Yes, the lyrics are rather corny, but I was trying to stick concepts in the song in a way they would remember. My oldest child did this lesson almost 10 years ago, and she still remembers parts of my crazy songs.) This worksheet will be used later to discuss rhythm also.
String & Piano Mini Books Write down what you learn about them.
String Family Info, pictures, and sound clips.
Label the Bass Worksheet to use with above link.
Label the String Family Worksheet
Harmony
The harmony of this piece is played by the piano. Listen how it accompanies the string bass, and blends pleasing pitches and chords with the melody. Some musicians consider the piano a part of the percussion family because the keys need to be pushed to play. Others place the piano in the keyboard family (organ, harpsichord, clavichord, electric keyboard, computer keyboard) because of their similarities in playing and structure.
Video - How a Piano is Made
Creative Composing
Okay, music detectives, we know so far that this piece of music is andante (slow), and is played by a low sounding instrument. What animal do you think the composer, Camille St.-Saens, was trying to imitate? What type of animal might sound slow and low? (The Elephant!) What timbre would you choose to imitate the elephant? What tempo would you choose? How could you make a song that would resemble an elephant? Perhaps a trumpet blast could come from his trunk? How about a tuba, drums, or percussion instruments? What else would you use? Try to compose a musical piece for an elephant out of sounds around your home.
Composition Page & Directions
Pitch
Pitch is how high or low a note sounds. Large instruments make the slowest sound waves and the lowest sounds. Smaller instruments have faster sound waves and sound higher. Does the string bass have a high or low pitch? What about the piano? The piano contains both high and low pitches. The inside of a piano has several sized strings. Each size makes a different pitch – small strings higher, long strings lower.
A fancier definition is “a tone or sound determined by the frequency of vibration of the sound waves reaching the ear: the greater the frequency, the higher the pitch” (yourdictionary.com). Older students may want to research the physics of sound or physiology of the ear.
Science related activities –Pitch Experiment Lap Reports 1 Wrap several sizes and widths of rubber bands around a shoebox. Students can play their “violins” by plucking the bands. Discuss the sizes of the rubber bands and their pitch. Why do the different sizes and widths of rubber bands make numerous pitches? Can we change the pitch of each rubber band by tightening or loosening the band?
Pitch Experiment Lab Reports 2 to take notes if you want to do the following projects. I highly recommend this one - very nice sound explanations, 3 easy sound experiments.
Energy in the Air – How Sound is Made Fun Online Pitch Activity
Composer
Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) was a French composer from the Romantic period of music. He composed Le Carnaval des Animaux – The Carnival of the Animals in 1886. L’Elephant – The Elephant is just one of the songs in the suite. Research the composer, the suite, the Romantic Period of music, France, and the French language using the following links.
Saint-Saens Notebook Page
Composer, Romantic Period Music, & France Lapbook Mini Books
Carnival of the Animals Drawing Book
Carnival of the Animals Information
Biography Links to hear his pieces.
Where is France Shutterfold for Lapbooks Flag & Map here also.
Meter
Listen to the piece and clap a steady beat to it. Sing lyrics also if they feel the beat, do not sing if you do not feel they have a consistent beat. Lead the children to tap their hands on their lap on beat one, and to clap hands on beats two and three. Listen another time and sing the lyrics and / or count 1 – 2 – 3, 1 – 2 – 3 throughout. Meter is the specific amount of beats per measure to help musicians count and play together. Another name for meter is ‘time signature’. Meter is marked for musicians at the beginning of a piece with two numbers such as:
2 3 4
4 4 4
The top number represents the amount of beats that belong in each measure (“the notes or rests, or both, contained between two vertical lines on the staff”). The vertical lines that separate the measures are called bar lines. They help break the music up into smaller parts that are easier to count. The bottom number represents what type of note receives one beat. In most songs, a quarter note plays for one beat notated by the 4 on the bottom. A quarter note can receive other amounts of beats if the bottom number is different. The Elephant has 3/4 time signature. Point out the dance-like quality of the piece. A dance that has three beats in a measure (one strong and two weak beats) is called a waltz. You may want to find a video of people waltzing to show them the style.
What is a Waltz? Mini Book
Rhythm
Written notes and rhythms have different values so musicians know how long to play each one. Notes and rests are assigned an amount of beats. Beats can be fast or slow, but are usually steady throughout a piece. For notes and rests in the following minis and games, the beats are as follows:
h = 2 =i q = 1 = g e = ½ = N
Rhythm Mini Books
Time Signature Math File Folder Game
Rhythm Pattern Card Games
Form
Form is the different sections of a piece of music, and how they are arranged or put in order. Try to hear how many sections are in the piece (3). The first and third sections that are the same will be called the “A Section”. The middle part sounds different so it is called the “B Section”. Put together, the form of L’Elephant is “ABA”. When the pieces are put together in this order, it is called ternary form. Young children may enjoy “feeling” the form by singing on the A section, waltzing like an elephant on the B section – take a giant elephant step on beat one, swing your trunk (arms) on beats two and three – and singing again on the last A section.
The Carnival of the Animals Chart
The Carnival of the Animals Listening Chart
The Carnival of the Animals Unit 1 Page 5 & 6 have great animal poems that are sometimes read to the audience at performances of 'Carnival'.
The Carnival of the Animals Unit 2 Science based
The Carnival of the Animals Unit 3a Lesson Plans
The Carnival of the Animals Unit 3b Lesson & Sound clips
The Carnival of the Animals Unit 4 Lesson Plan
The Carnival of the Animals Unit 5 Simple instrumental accompaniments for children to play.
The Carnival of the Animals Unit 6 (Foreign Language Resources)
The elephant is God's largest land mammal still on the earth. What an amazing creature He created! Thank you, God!
This is the first of the "Carnival of the Animals" music lesson plans. The other animals will be added through the spring.
Please leave a comment or two what you think about the lesson.
Thanks and may God bless you!
