Snow week-classes out for a week
Today we continued on our WebQuest adventure! We reviewed what a "quest" was and brainstormed what each one of us would want to bring on our own quests. It's funny how many students think about chocolate or a machine gun before normal food and water! We had a good laugh over our answers. :) We reviewed what our "Sound of Music" webquest was about as well as the task set before us. It is based upon the emotions that may be evoked within each of us when we listen to music. The students are currently going through a process of 12 steps/activities to assist in learning how to match pictures/images with text and music to create an intended emotional response. The "quest" is to create with their computer partner an "e-card" designed with a holiday and an intended recipient in mind. They are pretending to be hired by Hallmark and will be doing many activities around the concept of human emotions in order to be able to "speak a common language" when making these electronic greeting cards. The students are currently in the process of bringing in paper greeting cards which we will analyze together. This will help us understand emotional messages sent in greeting cards and how the message directly corresponds with the intended recipient and the holiday in mind. As they go through the webquest they will participate in group activities as well as partner activities to complete the task of creating the card. It should take the rest of the unit to complete the task of creating individual pictures, poetry as the text and the music in a computer program called Garageband. We will keep you posted on how it is going. The students have been really excited beginning this process. Teaching in the 21st century involves meeting them where they are at with technology and going from there. Wish us luck!! Thank you for sharing your child with me today!
PS t-shirt order forms are going home this week. I have attached a copy of this form if you need an additional copy. Please attach payment with the form. Orders will be called in on March 7th. Today we focused upon the genre of classical music. We began our day with a review of our list of musical genres and then read Zin, Zin, Zin, which discusses common instruments found in an orchestra. In pairs, the students read a biographical piece about Joseph Haydn, a famous composer during the Classical Era. We watched two Brain Pop clips - one on Mozart and the other on Beethoven. They both contributed to this era is significant ways as well as trained under Joseph Haydn while establishing themselves as artists. The students listened to Haydn's famous "Surprise Symphony" and made many guesses concerning the creation of the "surprise" chord near the beginning of the song - which was written to "surprise" the audience. We played the symphony piece again and as a class pretended to sneak downstairs to the kitchen to get a piece of cake when they were suppose to be sleeping while the song was playing the softer, repetitive notes. During the "surprise" part of the song, when the instruments are loudly played together, the students pretended to be caught by their parents! In the afternoon we listened to and studied Peter & the Wolf. After previously discussing several versions of the "Three Little Pigs", the students were introduced to a version that is different and tells the story from the Wolf's point of view. They used this idea to rewrite in pairs the story of Peter & the Wolf from the Wolf's point of view as well. The students learned how to insert a text box and images into a Smart Notebook file to match their portion of the story. Next week, we will assemble these slides into iPhoto and show them as a slideshow.
*Only Monday students experienced this week due to a snowstorm that canceled further classes. |
AuthorI am a Primary Gifted teacher in Joplin, MO. I have different students attend the gifted center each day. This information is a review of our weekly activities. Archives
March 2011
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