My students need books about bullying to discuss in class and at home, rhythm sticks, and 5 drums to work together to create harmony instead of dissonance in our class.
The sounds of the wrong chords being hit in music creates chaos and dissonance. The same is true for the classroom. My students need to use their sense of hearing to recognize how bullying creates a dissonance at school and at home.
I have a rambunctious group of 25 first graders.
This is their first time being in school all day. They have an excitement for learning and just soak it up. They are definitely hard workers who need many different types of projects to keep them busy and learning. I've learned that doing a worksheet just doesn't do anything for this set of students. Although they are only 6 years old, they've grown up in a hands-on world. They work well together and really help each other out, but are still learning about how to make and keep friends. Our class has students with active duty military parents, and students who speak English as a Second Language.
My Project
I am requesting 19 copies of the book Bullying in Schools. While my 1st graders won't be able to read these books, I would like to be able to offer them to the parents of my students so they will have a great place to start when talking about bullying at home. For my students, I have requested some different books about bullying and making friends so we can read them and discuss why it is important to create harmony in our classroom, on the playground, and at home. We will then be able to use our sense of hearing to hear the difference between when something is in harmony and when it is in chaos or dissonant. Each student will be given a musical instrument to try out and they will play for an amount of time without any instruction. I'll record the sound for them to hear. Then, I'll help them use their instruments to get into the same rhythm and record this as well. We will be able to compare and contrast the 2 sounds we made and relate them to how bullying creates dissonance.
My students really need a hands-on, ears-on, way of learning about how bullying creates a class and home where no one is comfortable.
I want them to realize the importance of creating a safe class. With support from home through the Bullying in Schools books, the picture books, and the musical instruments, they will be able to better recognize and stop bullying from happening. We want to hit the right chords to create beautiful music in our classroom.
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