Listening Lesson

Henderson, Miss Chung

Miss Heimann, Mr.

Grade level: Grade 2

Primary Musical Concept to be addressed: Melodic direction
Skills and Standards: Listening (NS #6); Moving; Creating (NS #4); Reading/Writing (NS
#5); Pitched Buzzing
Materials needed for the lesson: recording of Flight of the Bumblebee, whiteboard,
marker, bumblebee pictures
3 behavioral objectives addressed in the lesson, relevant to the concept:
1. While listening, students will move their bee pictures and their bodies to
correspond with the melodic direction with reasonable accuracy.
2. Students will create their own bee flight with varying pitch contour coordinating
with the motions with reasonable accuracy.
3. Students will correctly select one of the three melodic lines written on the board
based on teacher/student model.
Assessment during the lesson: observe students movement with bee pictures and
body; student response to melodic direction questions, student identification of buzz line
Detailed Procedure:
Prepare - Opening Set
ABBY
Ask students to briefly share experiences they have had with bees, and to describe their
observations of the flight of bees. Do they soar high in the air and quickly swoop down like
eagles, or do they hover around the same level like dragonflies? Model motions of these
types of flights.
SARAH
Lets be bumblebees! Invite the students to make bee buzzing sounds. Ask students to make
their buzzing sounds higher when the instructors arm is raised higher and lower in pitch
when the arm is lower. Then mimic a bee flight and use faster arm raising/lowering to guide
the sound of the flight.
TRANSITION STATEMENT: What did you notice about what our voices were doing? They
were getting higher and lower. Just as our voices do this, the melodies in music do this as
well. During the piece, I want you to listen for the rise and fall of the melody. Does anyone
know what this musical term is called? MELODIC DIRECTION
Listen
ABBY
Now were going to listen to a piece of music called Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov. Instruct students to listen for the melodic direction and how they might

describe it. Does it have a lot of up/down motion, or does it hold out the same pitch? Listen
to Flight of the Bumblebee.
Question
Ask students: What was the musical term I introduced at the beginning of class? MELODIC
DIRECTION! Yes, the rise and fall of the melody
Did you hear the pitches of melody changing frequently, or staying the same?
Did the melodic direction continuously move upward? Downward? Or did it have a lot of
up/down, back and forth motion?
Listen again/Question
TIM (Abby/Sarah control audio)
Play the recording again. Number sections on the whiteboard 1-5. As students answer
questions about each section, write notes of what happens with the melody in each section.
0:00-0:17
Q: Was there a lot of fast back and forth / up and down motion or did the pitch remain
constant?
0:17-0:30
Q: How did this section differ from the 1st section? Did the up/down motion happen as
quickly or was it a slower back/forth motion?
0:30-0:46
Q: Which section was this one similar to? The first or second section? So did the melody
move up/down a lot or remain constant?
0:46-1:01
Q: Have we heard this section before? In which section? First/third.
1:01-1:30
Q: What was the melodic direction like at the end of the piece? Did it stay around the same
pitch, move high upward, or move low downward?
Activate
Now that we got all the hard work done, its time to have some fun!
SARAH
Hand out the bee pictures to the students. Instruct the students to use their bees to fly as
they listen and to follow the notes we took on the whiteboard. ABBY/TIM should indicate
which section is playing by holding up fingers/point to the number on the whiteboard, and
SARAH lead the students with the bee pictures.
ABBY (Tim control audio)
Have students migrate to the movement space. Instruct them to listen to the recording
again and similar to how we moved the bees to the rise/fall, pretend they are bees and
move their bodies up and down with the music. Ask them how a bee might stand and how it
might move up and down. Model first!
SARAH
Ask for volunteers to use their sculpted bees to create their own bees flight. Model first!

(approx. 10 seconds) They should use their voices to make higher and lower pitched buzzing
sounds and move their bees to correspond with the higher and lower movement of the flight.
Model first!
Listen/Activate
ABBY/SARAH (Tim control audio)
Have a final listening of Flight of the Bumblebee. Allow students to choose one of the
activities to do while listening: moving bee pictures with SARAH or moving like a bee with
ABBY.
Evaluate
ABBY
Draw three bee flight lines on the board. Ask students to listen to your buzzing model of one
of the lines. Have them determine which one you are performing. Ask for 3-4 volunteers to
each choose a line to buzz, and again have the students determine which one they chose. If
its unclear, ask them to model the same one again.
Review or Closing Statement:
TIM
What was the new term we learned for the rise and fall of the melody? MELODIC
DIRECTION In the majority of the piece, did we hear a lot of up/down motion or did the
pitch stay the same?
For future lessons, we will learn more about the different instruments playing in the piece.