If I Taught Music Part 2: The Music Of Our Lives

"The Music Of Our Lives" is one of our first writing projects, and if I taught music I would use it as well. The activity asks the question, "If your life was a music CD, what would be the song titles?" It's an interesting exercise to define your interests and adventures through song titles, and it's a great way to understand children's level of word choice.

First I give my example of my CD cover:

The reason why I chose this title and cover is because I've been teaching overseas since 1998. Travelling has been a big part of my adult life. And I like to do travelling projects with my brother. A few years ago we travelled around South East Asia taking photos of us in a chicken head mask, and then creating a picture story from those photos. So instead of my title being, "I Like Travelling," the title sounds more like an album name: The Continuing Adventures of Chick N. Head.

That's the challenge I give the fourth graders; not only make an album title, but at least 12 song titles that tells about what they're interested in or stories that have happened to them. When they're done, we cut out what they've made and put it in a CD case. 

Here's what's been created this year:

This is only the first step. We'll use photobabble to reflect on the CD titles later to reflect on and share some of the titles in a slideshow.