Composer of the Month

I am really trying to bring the composer more to life for my 6th graders. We have talked about them bits here and there and have listened to various pieces throughout their years. In 6th grade, I am doing a composer a month.

For our first composer in September was Beethoven. I read them a little bit of the book “Ludwig Van Beethoven: Getting to know the World’s Greatest Composers”. I use my raffle tickets as they tell me things they have learned from our readings. (See the post about my raffle tickets and get a template for making them HERE. I tie it to my learning targets (see the post HERE.) I gave a test at the end with some questions about Beethoven and some blank line to write anything they could remember beyond those questions. Instead of making it a percentage, I gave them a raffle ticket for every piece of information they got right and have a separate container for a composer raffle, so their tickets wouldn’t overwhelm the regular raffle container. We listened to the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 9th symphonies The part with the choral singing of Ode to Joy, as well as the Moonlight Sonata, and Fur Elise. We also sang the English words of the Ode to Joy. It was part of our black belt on recorder in 5th grade, so they were already familiar with it. The 5th symphony was one of our extra belts on recorder as well, so those students who went beyond black belt were familiar with it already. Eventually, I’ll make my composer tests available.

In October, I’m doing Mozart. I plan to do a special study of Mozart’s Opera “the Magic Flute”. I know they will really enjoy it.