Tracey Aycock was responsible for creating one of the most well thought out STEAM lessons that I have ever seen. She incorporated all of the 4 C's (Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Communication) in this multi-faceted lesson.
1. The lesson began with the students listening to classical music and mapping out what each piece of music consisted of and that conversation led to discussions about Intros and Codas (endings).
2. The assignment was to compose with your classmates a piece with 16 beats.
3. The piece would be based on poetry from the book, Scarum Fair which Tracey shared with them.
4. They spent time discussing their noticings about each poem, focusing on the sounds that they picked up on in each.
5. Next, each team signed up for a job. Some groups looked for concrete sounds that mirrored the sounds in the poems. Some created sounds in GarageBand on their iPads. All sounds were sent via email to Tracey and she combined them into one master file and then the class edited it together.
2. The assignment was to compose with your classmates a piece with 16 beats.
3. The piece would be based on poetry from the book, Scarum Fair which Tracey shared with them.
4. They spent time discussing their noticings about each poem, focusing on the sounds that they picked up on in each.
5. Next, each team signed up for a job. Some groups looked for concrete sounds that mirrored the sounds in the poems. Some created sounds in GarageBand on their iPads. All sounds were sent via email to Tracey and she combined them into one master file and then the class edited it together.
| 6. One group was assigned to create the Carnival Booth itself for his/her class. Then all 5 of the booths from 4th and all 5 from 5th were combined into a Halloween Carnival. |  |
7. The next step in the process was for Tracey to introduce the Soundplant software. According to their website, Soundplant "...turns your computer keyboard into a versatile, low latency sound trigger and playable instrument. Via drag-and-drop, easily assign sound files of any format and length onto 72 keyboard keys, creating custom soundboards that put hours of instantly-playing audio at your fingertips with no extra hardware needed." Tracey imported each classes' GarageBand file into Soundplant.
| 8.Then it was time to incorporate the Makey Makey kit. The photo on the right shows you the basics of a Makey Makey circuit. |  |
9.Makey Makey works through opening and closing circuits, just like any other button. In our case, the circuit was connected with alligator clips attached to either end of the Carnival Booths. The circuit was closed when the students held hands in a circle around the Carnival Booths with the person at the end using the alligator clip to close the circle. Once the circuit was closed the music that the class had created played.
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Thank you, Tracey, for your all that you do to bring music alive for our students!
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