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Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Star Wars Lessons

Star Wars seems to be everywhere these days and my music room is no exception!  I just recently did round two of some of these movie based lessons and thought I would compile a post about the activities I use!

1. Star Wars Mirroring 

Its testing season so I am trying to keep lessons light, moving, and a lot of review!  To get our bodies moving I decided it would be a good time to introduce mirroring.  We talked about what mirroring is as a class and what we are trying to accomplish through this exercise.  I explained that we are expressing the music through our bodies, we are learning to improvise, using teamwork.  We are not trying to trick the person copying.  We are working together to show how the music makes us feel and move. 

Once we were all on same page of what it is and what are goal is, we began practicing.  First, I was the leader and the class stood scattered in their own space, standing, and facing me.  A teacher in my district played some music from the recent "The Force Awakens" movie in a mirroring activity and what an amazing soundtrack to move to.  I started with "Rey's Theme" and the students mirrored me.  There were a lot of giggles at first, but soon a hush came over the class and you could tell they were really focusing, trying to copy my movements.  

To end the activity for the day I had the students split into pairs, sitting and facing their partner.  I told the students to decide who would be the first leader and when I tap the triangle it would be the other partners turn to be the leader.  We discussed that if you are truly successful in mirroring that I should not be able to tell who the leader is.  We started off with just upper body for the day by sitting.  I continued using the same music so that the students could really get comfortable with it and build ideas to it. 

We will extend through a few classes by adding full body movement, movement across the room, and lastly adding scarves.  Also, for a final wrap up I plan to use scarves and movement across the room by splitting pairs into four different groups.  The four different group will move mirroring their partner at different times signaled by a triangle tap.  They must freeze when it is another groups turn.  I would pre establish this and write it on board and call out the form before performing.  


2.  Parachute Form 

This one I actually did outside and I split the students into two groups to use two parachutes.  They really enjoyed it! Teaches form and teamwork. The bubble part is the hardest part to get.  Students always want to yank the parachute down too quickly!! 


3. Rhythm Wars 

There are two posts I would recommend when researching this idea: 



One tip from me: When making the pool noodles I used red, green, and orange.  Looking back I would have just made them out of red and green.  Then I could have a group of "Light Side Jedi's" and "Dark Side Jedi's".  It would be easier when saying who's turn is first or keeping track of which groups turn. I don't even think there is an orange light saber in any of the movies! 




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