Pets & Other Animals Level: Early Grades - Listening, appraising & movement

Who Said Mice? (dynamics)

Watch the video and listen to this music about a cat and a mouse. What do the children think is happening when the music gets louder? In pairs create a 'still image' of the cat and the mouse. (A still image is like a snapshot of something happening, frozen in time, that shows how each person or animal is feeling and what they are doing.)

Tortoises (tempo, texture, timbre)

Everyone listen to Tortoises from the Carnival of the Animals by the composer Saint-Saens. The children move their arms and legs on all fours, as slowly as a tortoise, then pretend to go to sleep at the end. You may notice that the tune is a slowed down version of the Can-Can tune!

Ask what makes the music 'sound like' the way tortoises move. You can introduce the phrase 'slow tempo'. Draw attention to the piano playing at the start of Tortoises and listen as it continues in a plodding way at the same time as the other instruments (more instruments creating a thicker texture). If you have a piano available, let the children hear the sound when they press the keys. Then take off the big panel under the keyboard and ask them to say how it sounds different when they pluck or strum the strings (don't worry - pianos are very robust!).