Duration: 45 minutes
SPIRIT Skills:
- Critical thinking
- Problem-solving
- Creativity,
- Empathy
- Resilience
- Flexibility
- Emotional awareness, regulation and communication
Brief Description:
The teacher gives each group a card with a description of a precipitation situation.
Possible sentences they need to vocalize: ·
- First, the snow falls slowly and then turns into a heavy snowfall.
- The thick fog rolls slowly over the field, and visibility disappears.
- The hail taps softly at first, then harder, until eventually a threatening hailstorm arrives.
- On a sultry summer evening, the thunderclouds ominously approach.
- After a loud thunderclap, a short, intense rainstorm bursts out, gradually turning into a fine drizzle.
It is up to each group to imitate the sentence/precipitation. They must pay attention to the volume, varying between ‘loud’ and ‘soft’. The students are given time to vocalize their sentences about precipitation. As an interim check, the teacher visits each group. This way, the teacher can hear if the vocalization is correct (test phase of the STEMOOV model)
Afterwards, the goal is for each group to ‘vocalize’ their sentence to the rest of the class without reading it aloud. Each group comes forward and ‘let’s their sentence be heard’. The other students do not look and must try to figure out what was on their card.
It is important for the teacher to pay attention to the quality of the vocalization: are they really soft or loud sounds? Does the vocalization accurately match the weather situation? If not, it is important to point this out and have them go back to the ‘test’ phase.
Play a sound clip of precipitation The students listen (and do not look) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGRoX2jy7dI ).
- Discuss which precipitation forms were heard and how the sounds were represented. – What differences did you hear? Focus especially on the volume
- Reflect on how their understanding has grown since the beginning of the lesson. Let them listen to the video again, but this time they can watch and participate.
- Discuss how their associative field has expanded compared to the first lesson phase
How does this develop particular SPIRIT skills
Stage 3 is a complex task in which the children must combine the meteorological knowledge they acquired in the previous two stages with “music” and the sounds they create, and then present it to the others, (who must figure out, with their eyes closed, what kind of weather the group has translated into music) fundamentally develops the creativity of both the performers and the audience. To do this, they must think outside the box.
When children have to figure out and plan how to use the limited objects available to them in unusual ways for their performance, (for example, slowly and rhythmically rubbing their palms can imitate the whisper of fog, while rapidly drumming their fingertips on the desk brings drizzling rain to life), they develop both their creativity and their problem-solving skills.
In cases when the audience cannot figure out what kind of weather they have “set to music,” the performing group must examine why the others did not “understand” their performance and, based on this, must modify and re-create it. In addition to the above-mentioned transversal skills, this process also develops their resilience, ability to overcome failure, and flexibility in a playful way—all of these are also two important elements of the SPIRIT skills.
What do we want to achieve regarding SPIRIT skill development (student understanding and/or behaviour)?
Critical Thinking (e.g., “Is this the correct sound for this weather situation?”)
Children show critical thinking when they evaluate their vocalizations to see if they truly match the described weather situation. They think about whether their sound choices are appropriate in terms of volume and accuracy. Behaviour:
- Pausing to reflect on whether their vocalizations match the weather description (e.g., “Is this a loud or soft sound for a thunderstorm?”).
- Discussing with group members if the sound represents the weather correctly and making adjustments.
- Listening carefully to their own vocalizations and comparing them to their peers, ensuring the sound fits the situation.
Problem-Solving / Creativity (e.g., “How can we represent this specific weather situation through sound?”)
Children use creativity to experiment with different vocal techniques to capture the essence of a weather situation, focusing on the volume and intensity of their sounds. They engage in problem-solving to figure out how to best replicate precipitation sounds. Behaviour:
- Collaborating within their group, trying different methods to vocalize the weather situation (e.g., soft snow vs. heavy rain).
- Exploring different vocal techniques (e.g., using whispers, loud shouts, or varied rhythms) to match the weather description.
- Adjusting their approach after testing, showing flexibility in their solutions and trying again until they feel satisfied with their representation.
Academic/Curriculum Objective connection
Students can produce loud and soft sounds with different kinds of materials.
In the translation it must be adapted! They are the national curriculum.
Materials and tools needed for implementation
- Cards with a precipitation situation
- Own body (without voice) – valuable free material –
- Orff musical instruments
- Percussion instruments.
Preparation notes
Cards with a precipitation situation
Guided Questions
- When the sound has to be improved:
- If I closed my eyes right now, would I really feel like I was standing outside in thick fog or a pounding hailstorm, or does this feel more like something else? How about we try this out?
- Let’s say just one of you performs the sounds while the rest of us close our eyes and describe how it feels. Then based on that, we could make some adjustments.
- Empathy / Reflection: Which sound is the most pleasant?
- Which sound did your ears like the most? Ask each other if they had the same feeling like you when they hearing that sound, or if something completely different sound would be pleasant to them. What do you think – by understanding each other’s feelings, could we choose the best sound more effectively?
- When kids get stuck before their own presentation
- I notice you’re a little nervous about the performance. When you start playing, everyone else will close their eyes completely, so no one will actually be watching you! How about we all take a deep breath together before the performance, and as we exhale, pretend that the wind is blowing all our nerves away?
Stage Debriefing Questions (Optional)
- How did you use your imagination when you had to recreate the sound of a quiet fog or a knocking hailstorm using objects or instruments that are not meant for that at all? What was the biggest challenge you faced while coming up with these sounds, and how did you work together to overcome it?
- How did you manage to completely forget what these objects are normally used for and think outside the box?
- How did you feel, and what did you do when the others didn’t immediately guess your weather story during the presentation?
- How did you manage to quickly adapt and come up with something new without losing your enthusiasm for the game?
- How helpful was it to you in preparing and ensuring the success of your presentation to try to think and feel like your classmates, who would be listening to your presentation with their eyes closed? How could you do it?
- How did you feel when your classmates figured out your weather stories? How would you describe the feeling of success?
Tips and Tricks for dealing with stage challenges
- You can also give the same sentence to two groups. This way, they will realize that not everyone vocalizes the same sentence in the same way.
- The different sentences can be written on the board as a help for the other students who need to guess what was vocalized.
- Ensure that the sentences describing the weather situations are understood (so that students know what they mean). If necessary, review the sentences with the whole class beforehand.