5/1/15 - Day 121 - Hall of the Mountain King

At work I am doing my "Music Tells a Story" unit. One of my favorite lessons is for the piece In the Hall of the Mountain king. There are several things you can do with this one, but for my 3rd graders we listen to the music, I tell a slightly altered version the story of Peer Gynt, then we act out the music having each student pretend to be a troll and chasing Peer Gynt out of the mountain....one troll for each statement of the theme. It's so much fun! We round out the activity by listing to the music a few more times while the students create trolls out of some green playdough I made.  The kids made some excellent trolls this year. I love this lesson, it combines so many things, music appreciation, how music can be used to tell a story, exploration of musical form, understanding of musical theme, movement, and visual art. It's chock full of learning!