PRIMARY MUSIC Listening Activities SET 3

This structured resource pack is a great introduction to analysing music and is perfect for young students between Year 2 and 5 who are beginning their learning journey in Music, or for older students at secondary level with lower ability. It is also ideal for cover lessons, home-schooling, and – of course – for a great Friday afternoon class activity! Furthermore, it works really well as a ‘composer of the week’ activity – each Set in this Series includes at least one Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern composer, and no composer appears in any other Set in the Series.

Five whole 1-hour lessons are included in the pack with fun, themed colouring worksheets for the students, a 25-slide detailed PowerPoint with up-to-date YouTube links, and full teaching guidance so that you will feel completely supported whether you are a music specialist, or not. This is Set 3 in my Primary Music Listening Activities Series.

Full Details:

Students use their knowledge of colours to help them understand musical features relating to the musical elements. There are 5 themed lessons, each with its own colouring-in worksheet: Above the Treetops; At the Zoo; Braving the Dunes; Little Night-Crawlers; On Thin Ice. A specific piece of famous classical music is the focus of each lesson, and the music has some kind of link to the theme. For instance: On Thin Ice is based on the 2nd Movement of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Winter Dreams’ Symphony No. 1; Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals is the one for At the Zoo.

Each student worksheet has 8 pairs of numbered statements. Two or three of the eight are opinion-based (such as ‘I like/ do not like this music’). The other 5 or 6 are related to musical elements and specific features of the piece of music used for the lesson. For example: The music is fast/ slow. Each statement has a colour pattern to use, and where statements are a little more complex (such as ‘I can hear only string instruments’ or ‘all instruments play all of the time’) they can link their knowledge of colour to reach the right answer. For instance: a child of 5 to 9 years old may not be able to distinguish between the sound of strings, as opposed to strings with woodwind instruments, but they will know that a Penguin should not be red and blue! So, to colour a penguin red and blue is wrong; it should be black and white, which is the colour pattern linked to the correct musical statement. As they colour and listen to the music (which they should always be encouraged to do) they will learn to recognise this sound.

I take great care to ensure my resources are of the highest quality – both in content and in presentation – and I wholeheartedly recommend them to both you and your students. I welcome feedback and enquiries from my colleague-customers all over the world, and I can be contacted directly at rainynightmusic@hotmail.com. I would be delighted to hear from you, and I thank you for considering this resource for your classroom or home.