This center, unfortunately, is not the most fun center. I welcome suggestions on how to make this center more fun. I’m tried to have students read a bio about a composer of their choice and create a one-pager (one page creation including words and pictures) but that was too hard to accomplish in the amount of time.
I recently found a website that is, supposedly, for home school music learning but, hey, whatever works. There are composer biographies for the difference historical eras of music and the children complete an activity based on what they read. The website also includes links to the composer’s most famous works in a printable format.
Our composer for the month is Johannes Brahms. After reading the biography as a group or individually, the students complete a Job Application as the composer found HERE. I chose this activity because it has the children look for the most pertinent information. I do wish it wasn’t basically regurgitating information. Again, any suggestions on making this center, not only more enjoyable, but more beneficial than copying facts. There is also a word search to go with it. I like the word search because it doesn’t give a word bank. The children have to decide which words are the most important and find THOSE words in the search. The children DO NOT like that at all but I do because of the higher order thinking involved.
As of right now, all grade levels that are doing centers (3rd-6th) are doing the same thing in the composer center. Since I’m still working on it. I figure I can keep the same for this year and then plan for something different for next year. I don’t know….there are so many thoughts going through my brain right now. I may be obsessed with my job just a bit.
Oh well……like I’ve said before, I have to have something to obsess over or I’m just not satisfied with life.
Thanks for reading!