Wild About Learning: A Kindergarten Musical Journey Through the Animal Kingdom
May is music month, so the kindergarten students at Wayoata School invited their families for a one-hour performance of The Carnival of the Animals under the direction of music teacher Jeff McPherson.
The Carnival of the Animals is a set of compositions for piano and chamber orchestra by the French composer Camille Saint-Saens written in 1866. Their humorous, playful nature has made them a popular way for music teachers to introduce young children to classical music and the instruments of the orchestra.
Through The Carnival of the Animals, Wayoata kindergartners have been learning how to listen to music for specific content and exploring opposites. Each piece in the song cycle challenged the students to listen, move, sing, play, create, analyze, and respond to the music all while developing the Global Competencies—known as the six Cs— identified in the Manitoba Framework for Learning through active play-based learning.
Musical skills were at the forefront of the students’ learning but connections were made to other areas. The students created and used a music map to follow high and low sounds and tracked the piece “The Wild Donkeys” with a finger from left to right to solidify early reading skills. They worked on pre-coding skills from the RETSD digital literacy continuum by thinking and planning actions forwards and backwards in “Kangaroos.”
The kindergartners also explored opposites to develop their musical listening, vocabulary, and comprehension by moving to show high/low, fast/slow, loud/soft, heavy/light and even fancy Italian musical terms like staccato/legato. Practicing for the performances, they improved their body awareness, spatial awareness, and locomotor movements like tiptoeing, jumping, hopping, marching, running, walking, spinning, and stomping.
The students created their own props and costumes for the show with their classroom teachers. They were excited to show off their creations to their families who were invited to leave their seats and join the performance. Audience members became bird watchers in “The Cuckoo in the Woods” and trees in a forest in “Aviary.” They joined students in showing beautiful and graceful movements in “The Swan.” Families had a great time engaging in play-based learning with their children and got to bring home all the props and costumes to continue exploring The Carnival of the Animals with their children at home.
Congratulations Wayoata kindergarten students for a fabulous performance – and to Mr. McPherson for inspiring an early love of music with innovative and engaging teaching methods!
