Teaching Adjectives With Music

Element to Teach: Adjectives

Grade Level: 3

Concept: The students will broaden their knowledge about adjectives through using them to describe both objects and music.

Objectives: The student will:

1. write down adjectives to describe objects in a bag.
2. report to the class the adjectives they used.
3. write down adjectives that describe the music they listen to.
4. share their adjectives with the class.

Materials Needed:

• 5 paper bags
• 5 different objects to place in each bag (potato, granola bar, fabric softner, apple, bagel)
• various samples of recorded music (Classic Disney Volume I )

Musical Element: The song Zip­A­Dee­Doo­Dah can be taught using the repeated melody and form that it has throughout the song. Children between the ages of kindergarten and second grade would all know this song and they would understand form and repeated patterns more easily when working with a familiar song.

Procedure:

Introduction: The teacher asks the students what an adjective is. (a word that describes) The teacher then talks with the class about the work they have done with adjectives the past few days. They have been identifying adjectives in sentences. Explain that today they are going to do a fun activity using adjectives.

Development:

1. Five mystery bags will be distributed around the room. Each student is asked to place one hand in the bag and feel the object. They can touch the object, shake the bag, etc., but they can not look at the object.
2. The student should then write down as many adjectives as they can to describe the unknown object. After each child has written adjectives for all five bags, the adjectives will be shared with the class. The teacher will ask the students if they can name the object. The teacher will then display each object to the class.
3. We will then talk about the fact that adjectives can help us figure out what objects are. Next, the teacher will play a sample of music (Zip­A­Dee­Doo­Dah) and the students will write down adjectives that describe the music (elements of the music, how it makes them feel, what it makes them think of). The students will then share their adjectives with the class.

Closure: The teacher will discuss that adjectives can be used to describe many objects and can also be used to describe music. Even though we can't actually see the objects or the music, we came up with many descriptive words to help others understand what are senses are telling us about the objects and music. The song Zip­A­Dee­Doo­Dah uses many different adjectives in the song that can help students better grasp this concept.

Evaluation: The students will hand in the papers on which they recorded adjectives. If the students' words were indeed adjectives, then they will receive full credit for this assignment.

Follow­Up: The students can pair up and use adjectives to describe an object to their partner. The student describing will have an object to describe while their partner sits quietly with their eyes shut. The student describes the object using detailed adjectives so that the partner can guess the object. The same can be done with music. One student describes a popular piece of music while the other tries to guess the music by listening to the adjectives.

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