West African Music, Stories and More Instruments!

In several classes this week, we read Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears, a story from West Africa. 

This Pinterest/Orff-inspired lesson allows students to create sounds and drama for the story.  For younger classes, we read the story and created sounds first with our bodies.  For older students, we jumped right in and began making sounds on instruments to represent the characters and various parts of the story. 

Below is a video of a second grade class creating sounds to the story using their bodies.  Their creative idea for the line "wake the sun so that the day could come" was too cute to not post. 

Because I am rather soft-spoken, you may not be able to hear my voice.  What I'm reading is as follows:

"King Lion said to the council,
'So, it was the mosquito
who annoyed the iguana
who frightened the python
who scared the rabbit
who startled the crow
who alarmed the monkey
who killed the owlet--
and now Mother Owl
won't wake the sun
so that the day can come.' "


Next week, we will continue by acting out the story with the sounds we created on instruments.  More to come!

Also--big news!  Our African Drumming project with Donors Choose has been fully funded!  This means our music room will acquire four new wonderful African drums.  I am very excited to use these in class when they come in!  Thank you to those who donated and supported our project!

Comments

Popular Posts