Music and the Home School ~ Part III ~ Incorporating Music into Unit Studies

In the first part in this series, Music and the Home School, I laid out some basic ideas on how to incorporate music into unit studies and history. Music and the Home School Part II focused on how to use a live concert as a learning experience.

This, Part III, will focus specifically on using music in Science Unit Studies. For a better understanding, please refer back to Part I.

I like to use the "Five in a Row" type plan for unit studies because it pulls together all elements of learning to focus on one specific topic, thereby driving it home. Quite simply, things stick better that way. Our minds learn by using all parts of our sensory system. Music definitely helps to learn by hearing. Somehow, science and history really comes alive when we hear it through song.

Think about movies, for example. When we can see the picture of what happened, it's great! But, when music is added, it really pulls us in and makes us a part of the story. Then we remember it! Acting out stories in a play format is fun, but how much more fun is it to add a musical element? It really brings it to life!

Music has been a part of human life since God created us. It moves us. It helps us to express ourselves. It entertains. So, how can we pull this rich history into our unit studies? 

Here are a few tips:

Tip #1 - Do a Google search for videos, mp3 files, and lesson plans online.
When I searched "music, ocean" I found very little that was helpful. But, when I searched "music about water" quite a few things popped up. Sometimes changing the wording can help produce more hits.
Here are some fun things I found...

The Mystery, Art, and Science of Water
The History of Handel's Water Music
Video ~ Handel: Water Music, Allegro
How to Make Water Chimes

Tip # 2 - Do a search for (or think up on your own) some science project ideas about music.
I have found several science experiments online about plant growth being affected by music, music's ability to "heal" or help animals, and music's ability to help students at math. Music is very mathematical and scientific. Use that to aid in studies about sound waves, energy, the ears, the brain, etc. Here's a website link to get you started:
Music Science Fair Projects

Tip # 3 - Use music as a background for your learning time. Throw on some appropriate tunes to help concentration and quiet learning time! Use music from the time period you're studying. Create a playlist of music that goes with your unit!

Tip # 4 - Allow experimentation and exploration. Kids love to record things and hear them back. When talking about things like weather, bugs, or water, allow them to try to create sound effects for things like tornadoes, wind, waves, and insects. Let them use different instruments or things from the house or nature to create. Come up with a musical composition that uses these sounds or add them to a spoke poem and record them together. Try using rocks to make a "stomp" style rhythm song. Add a poem about rocks to it.

Listing of music compositions for some unit studies:

Insects

Franz Schubert's Der Einsame D 800 (The Hermit) translation 
Bela Bartok's Mikrokosmos, Book VI, BB 105, No. 142, From the Diary of a Fly 
Ralph Vaughan Williams' Overture to the Wasp 
Modest Mussorgsky's Mephistopheles’s Song Of The Flea 
Chet Atkins' Centipede Boogie 
Thomas Arne's Where The Bee Sucks There Lurk I 
Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee  
Kalevi Aho's Insect Symphony (7th Symph)
Bela Bartok's Night Music 
Roussel's The Spider's Feast 
Ralph Vaughn Williams' The Wasps Suite  
Tchaikovsky's Chorus of Insects  
Grieg's La Papillon (The Butterfly)

Water, Seas, and Oceans

Debussy's La Mer (The Sea)

Douglas Lilburn's Sea Preludes 
Felix Mendelssohn's Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Opus 27
and the more familiar Hebrides or Fingals Cave Op.26 
Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony

Astronomy, Stars, Planets 
Gustav Holst's  The Planets

Mathews' Pluto: The Renewer

(Holst completed "The Planets" in 1917, before the discovery of Pluto. Though he lived until 1934, a few years after Pluto's discovery, he never added a final movement. Colin Mathews rectified that omission with this new piece.)

Haydn's Symphony No. 43 in E flat major ("Mercury"), H. 1/43

Mozart's Symphony No. 41 In C Major K. 551 ("Jupiter")

Berners' Triumph of Neptune

Hovhaness' Saturn, Op.243

Lully's Le Grand Divertissement Royal de Versailles, devertissement / comedie, LWV 38 Les suivants de Neptune

Dvorak's Rusalka (One song in this opera is about the Moon)

 

Animals

Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals
J. S. Bach's Where My Sheep Safely Graze
Rossini's La Boutique fantasque: Galop (horses)
Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake
Respighi's Prelude from The Birds
Anderson's The Waltzing Cat 

Can you think of any to add? Comments are ALWAYS welcome! Post your unit study and some works that you're using or add to the lists above!