Form and listening maps!

To continue with teaching the students the importance of learning that music has different forms, I've decided to bring out a fun concept that I learned in college, Listening Maps!

  Listening maps are great tools, especially for the younger kids that can't read music yet.  A listening map is essentially a visual representation of a song.  It can show how the music goes up or down in sound, or if there is a steady beat. Your job as the reader of the listening map is to follow along.

 The second great thing about the listening maps is that it shows when the music changes. When the pictures change, the music changes. From earlier lessons (Such as Music Form) The students already learned that when the music notes change to a different pattern then the form changes. In this slide we see the pictures are different the previous slide therefore even if the students can't hear it (yet!) they will be able to SEE it change!

Since we will be doing these listening maps near Easter I decided to write the map to a song called "The Ballet of the Unhatched Chick" by Mussorgsky (Get the youtube clip here Chicks!) In order to get the students even more engaged I made a bunch of Chicks on a Stick! This tool will be used to help them follow along with the map on the projector screen, and lets face it have some fun too!! I fully believe that students learn better when they want to learn, and when something is fun they want to do it!

These were super east to make, and pretty cheep! If you go to AC Moore or any other craft store right now they have things out for the Easter holiday.  These foam chicks came 5 to a pack, and the pack was only a dollar! The googly eyes and Popsicle sticks were only a dollar as well. Super cheep, super easy to make, and loads of fun!


If you're interested in the whole 24 slide PowerPoint, complete with 2 listening maps, please visit my store at teachers pay teachers 

Happy Listening!