Musical Junk
Saturday March 31, 2012
This week our lesson was framed around musical junk. In our discussion at the beginning of class, we talked about sounds and instruments, and how sounds are made. We then talked about how sounds and music can be created using junk materials, and followed up with showing the students a video of STOMP, a musical group that makes music from non-traditional materials. The students loved the video, and also enjoyed shouting out all the different types of junk that the musicians in Stomp were using to create their music. We showed the students several different types of junk instruments, and informed them that they would be making their own junk instruments in class. We followed this with two different teacher examples and discussed how many different sounds each example could make. To our surprise, the majority of the students wanted to make an instrument, which was wonderful, however we began to see the most of the students were making their instruments just like our teacher examples. We tried talking to them about how to use other materials to make different sounds, but they continued to do exactly what we did in the examples.
We also planned on recording individual sounds from their instruments, and editing those sounds with the students the following week in garage band so that there would be a final composition of their sounds, but since most of the instruments they made were very similar, we might not do the editing part. We did take students in groups of 3 or 4 into the sculpture room and recorded the sounds, so the students had a chance to listen closely to their class mate's instruments, which was a plus. All in all, the instruments themselves did not turn out how we would have liked them to, but the students still learned about using junk in yet another way to create art and music. They also developed an understanding for different sounds that can come from different objects. Conceptually the lesson went great, the students were engaged, and they were still learning valuable information in regards to our unit.
Below are some photos of students working on their instruments. One of the photos is of a student who is typically hard to get engaged, and he was excited and engaged in making his instrument this week, which was awesome!
Below, Rosie and another student work on the straw light.
As usually, Sophie finished her instrument quickly, and spent the rest of the class decorating her trash can. We always put some sort of video on during snack, which Sophie usually doesn't eat, but she always sneaks a few peaks at the video! This is the only thing that can pull her away from her trash can for a few moments!
We've noticed that some of the centers are becoming a bit stale, so we are going to take the class mobile down, because a student mentioned that he thought it was getting too long, which is true, so we will retire that center and replace it with a new one, involving bottle cap structures. We are also thinking about continuing the mosaic in a more individualized way, in order to allow the students the opportunity to continue to think about patter by "adding" to the class mosaic individually on separate boards. We are also going to try and refine the class activity more, so that the students can dig for deeper meaning and understanding within the activities. They have already grasped why we are using junk, so now we can push for further development and understanding. We are developing a new activity for this weekend, which will involve color and collage, and are working out the details of a game involving students trading objects that "'don't fit" in order to go to the next step which will be making collages with colored junk.
What do you do when a project doesn't go as you had hoped? And how can you keep the energy of the semester going, once you have settled into a routine? These are excellent, important questions!
ReplyDeleteI think reflection is key, and also not beating yourself up too much when things don't go perfectly. The students were still learning from the activity, about sounds and music. Looking at what works is awesome, but looking at what doesn't work as well is even more important, because it gives us the opportunity to think about how to make it better. We definitely think we're at the point where we've gotten used to the center based class room, as well as having students adapt as well to the room and concepts of the lesson, so now we need to dig deeper for even more meaning and discovery. Looking at the projects that didn't work is where we will find the most growth!
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