Submitted by Beth Jahn, Montevideo, Minnesota

Idea posted December 14, 2010

Sixth graders are the oldest in my school, and they have basically shut down for the year. I wanted to do some group work, but I can see that a bunch of them won't cooperate. Yesterday, I pulled out this story and read it to them:

The Little Red House with No Doors, No Windows and a Star Inside

Then, I told them we need to make the story musical. We started a group composition project to create a singable melody for:

I'm looking for a house,
Without a door,
With a star, with a star,
Inside.

We set the instruments in C pentatonic, and I let them "noodle" to try to find something they liked for the first line (starting on C). We listened to a few suggestions from the kids. We tried out a couple and then voted on the one we liked best. We repeated for the other lines until we found a melody we liked. We add some unpitched percussion on the words house, door, and star and a simple bordun.

Next time, we are going to add some other sound effects to the story, find a narrator, and have some kids figure out how to make it into a little play. I told them if we can make this into something we are proud of, we can get a younger grade to come watch us perform it in a couple of weeks.

They really seem to be enjoying the project. I may do something similar with my 5th graders after we are finished with our pre-band info. They are my REALLY tough group, so it will be interesting to see if I can get them hooked into the project, too.