Title – Peter and the Wolf – Instruments

By – Cathy Maddox

Primary Subject – Music

Secondary Subjects – Language Arts

Grade Level – 1-3

(This is a two/three part lesson) 45 minutes each

Materials needed: Any book of

Peter and the Wolf

, various instruments – drums, maraca, jingle bells, glockenspiel, claves, etc.

Procedures:

1. Read the story “

Peter and the Wolf

“

2. After reading the story, talk about the characters and then assign classroom instruments to each character. Re-read the story and have students play their instruments at the appropriate times.

Materials needed: a CD with the music to

Peter and the Wolf

by Sergei Prokofiev (I went online and found the music), pictures of each instrument-flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horns, violin, and drum. I also use costumes.

Procedure:

1. Explain that just as we the class put our classroom instruments to the story last class time, there is a man by the name Sergei Prokofiev who did the same thing. He used instruments from the orchestra.

2. Show the picture of each ‘character’ and play an example of each instrument. The copy of music that I downloaded has this section.

3. Assign students to each character (it’s ok if there are 4 birds and 2 cats… you get the picture)

4. Explain that the ‘characters’ will act out the story when they hear their instrument played. To make this easier for the little guys, I hold up the picture that represents their character.

It’s a lot of fun watching them pretend to be a cat, bird, wolf, duck, hunters, grandfather, or Peter.

You can do lots of things with this exercise. But it is a good way to introduce orchestra instruments to the students. Even the little guys enjoy this and understand.

E-Mail

Cathy Maddox

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