Students use music they already know and love to learn about the language and expression of music. Students will select an autobiographical piece of music that represents who they are, what is important to them, what they value, and how they would like to be perceived by others.
Through reading the story Freddy the Frog and the Thump in the Night by Sharon Burch, students will discover how to read music notes in the treble clef and then will learn to perform simple songs on xylophones.
Music was one way the soldiers of the American Civil War could both pass the time and remember home and family. They whistled or sang familiar songs while performing menial duties, and some played instruments such as harmonicas and fiddles during their free time. Students will compare and contrast a Union song and a Confederate song, and see firsthand what these soldiers were experiencing.
Students will learn to recognize a five-tone scale. Students will sing or perform known American folksongs together in class. Advanced students will be able to identify all five pitches and even discern the actual pentatonic scale being used.
Students will complete two language arts activities for this lesson. In the first activity, students use folk songs from the era of the California Gold Rush, which are introduced in the early chapters of By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleishman, to identify folk song motifs in the classical music of Antonín Dvořák. This will be explored by the students' creation of a labeled line drawing of one of Dvořák 's compositions.
After learning about the Great Depression and the New Deal as part of a Social Science unit, students will explore the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal One Program that operated from 1935-1943. The Federal Art Project (FAP) was one arm of the WPA and included the Theater Project called "Sing for Your Supper". The song Ballad for Americans (formerly Ballad for Uncle Sam) was written for this project. Students will watch and listen to Paul Robeson sing Ballad for Americans from an online video.