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Key Stage 2 Unit 3 - Animal Crackers |
Learning, Listening, Composing & Evaluating Activities |
Performing Activities - Songs & Scores |
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Exploring Descriptive Music |
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This unit takes, as its starting point, Saint-Saëns’ programmatic suite “Carnival of the Animals” as a musical starting point to explore how composers have created descriptive music based on animals. Pupils begin to explore birdsong as a type of music, listening to “bird-related” movements from “Carnival of the Animals” and performing different birdsongs. They then move on to explore “The Aquarium” and create their own descriptive movement based on a fish or sea animal. Pupils then explore another descriptive and programmatic work, Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” where different animals and characters are represented by different instruments of the orchestra, each with a unique timbre. Pupils then explore the “March of the Royal Lion” and other movements from Saint-Saëns’ suite investigating how the composer has used timbre and other elements of music to create descriptive pieces before creating their own “class Carnival of the Animals” suite, linked by Saint-Saëns’ “March of the Royal Lion” theme. There are a range of “animal-inspired” songs to accompany the unit, which can be sung as rounds and pupils are also given the opportunity to listen to other “non-animal related” pieces of descriptive music from different times and places by other composers. Element Focus - Pitch, Texture, Timbre & Dynamics |
Starter & Plenary Activities |
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Sample Materials |
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Year 7 Resources |
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Music |
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Year 7 Baseline Assessment |
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Key Stage 2 Music Resources |
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Frequently Asked Questions |
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Scheme of Work |
Lesson Plan (PDF) |
Lesson Plan (DOC) |
Lesson Bundles (ZIP) Download all the resources you need for each lesson (excluding video files) in a ZIP file. |
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Lesson 1 Exploring Birdsong |
Resource Bundle |
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Lesson 2 Exploring The Aquarium |
Resource Bundle |
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Lesson 3 Exploring Peter and the Wolf |
Resource Bundle |
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Lesson 4 Exploring The March of the Royal Lion Theme |
Resource Bundle |
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Lesson 5 Composing a class “Carnival of the Animals” Suite |
Resource Bundle |
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Lesson 6 Performing a class “Carnival of the Animals” Suite |
Resource Bundle |
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Animal Crackers Composing Cards |
Listening to Descriptive Bird Music (uses Audio 3) |
Aquarium Composing Cards |
Carnival of the Animals Composing Sheet |
Evaluating the class ‘Carnival of the Animals’ |
Animal Detectives Listening Sheet
(uses Audio 8) |
Exploring Descriptive Music
(uses Audio 11) |
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Worksheet 8 - Listening to ‘Peter and the Wolf’
(uses Audio 14 or Video 2) |
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Song Sheet 1 - “Animal Crackers Songpack” A selection of 17 “Animal-themed” songs suitable for singing in unison, rounds and as partner songs, together with ostinato instrumental accompaniments. MIDI 1 - Algy (song melody in unison then as a 4-part round); MIDI 2 - Algy - (ostinato accompaniment repeated 8 times) MIDI 3 - Lady, Come down and See (song melody in unison and then as a 4-part round); MIDI 4 - Lady, Come Down and See (ostinato and chords accompaniment repeated 16 times) MIDI 5 - White Swans (song melody in unison then as a 4-part round); MIDI 6 - White Swans (ostinato and chords accompaniment repeated 16 times) MIDI 7 - Cuckoo’s Gone Away (song melody in unison then as a 3-part round); MIDI 8 - Cuckoo’s Gone Away (ostinato and chord accompaniment repeated 12 times) MIDI 9 - Why Shouldn’t my Goose? (song melody in unison and then as a 4-part round); MIDI 10 - Donkeys and Carrots (song melody in unison and then as a 4-part round) MIDI 11 - Why Shouldn’t my Goose? and Donkeys and Carrots performed together as “partner songs” (repeated twice) MIDI 12 - Why Shouldn’t my Goose? and/or Donkeys and Carrots (chords and bass ostinato accompaniment repeated 16 times) MIDI 13 - Softly Sings the Donkey (song melody in unison then as a 4-part round); MIDI 14 - Softly Sings the Donkey (chords accompaniment repeated 16 times) MIDI 15 - Morning Mister Blackbird (song melody in unison then as a 4-part round); MIDI 16 - Morning Mister Blackbird (ostinato and chord accompaniment repeated 12 times) MIDI 17 - Thirty Purple Birds (song melody in unison and then as a 4-part round); MIDI 18 - Song of the Frogs (song melody in unison and then as a 4-part round) MIDI 19 - Frogs Festival (song melody in unisons and then as a 4-part round); MIDI 20 - Frogs Festival (ostinato and chords accompaniment repeated 16 times) MIDI 21 - Kookaburra (song melody in unison and then as a 4-part round); MIDI 22 - Kookaburra (recorder/vocal ostinatos repeated 16 times) MIDI 23 - Brown and Yellow Keskidee (song melody in unison and then as a 4-part round); MIDI 24 - Brown and Yellow Keskidee (ostinato and chord accompaniment repeated 16 times) MIDI 25 - Three Blind Mice (song melody in unison and then as a 4-part round); MIDI 26 - Poor Fly (song melody in unison and then as a 2-part round) MIDI 27 - Baby Sardine (song melody in unison and then as a 3-part round); MIDI 28 - Mister Rabbit (song melody in unison and then as a 9-part round); MIDI 29 - Mister Rabbit (ostinatos and chord accompaniment repeated 12 times) |
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Score 1 - March of the Royal Lion from ‘Carnival of the Animals’ - Saint-Saëns Audio example on Audio 1 Theme example on MIDI 30 |
Score 2 - Birdsongs to Perform
Modelled on MIDI 31-35 MIDI 31 - The Cuckoo MIDI 32 - The Robin MIDI 33 - The Song Thrush MIDI 34 - The Rooster MIDI 35 - The Nightingale |
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The Aviary from ‘Carnival of the Animals’ - Saint-Saëns |
The Cuckoo - Daquin |
Extract from ‘On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring’ - Delius |
Fish Bowl
(uses Audio 6)
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Introduction and March of the Royal Lion from ‘Carnival of the Animals’ - Saint-Saëns |
Tiger - Henry Cowell |
Descriptive Music Picture Matching
(uses Audio 10) |
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Animals and Characters in ‘Peter and the Wolf’
(uses Audio 12 or Video 1)
Instruments and Sections/Families of the Orchestra |
Audio 13 Animals’ - Saint-Saëns |
My Animal Crackers Learning |
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