Music sparks Imagination

We used the book "Once Upon an Ordinary School Day" by Colin McNaughton to support our learning. 

The story opened a path to thinking about imagination and creativity. The following phrases from the story inspired the children: "I want you to listen to some music and I want you to let the music make pictures in your heads" and "It was as if a dam had burst in his head and words just came flooding out..." 

As we are approaching our summative activity where the children will be sharing their knowledge on sound, we listened to classical music and each of them took a turn to share an idea of what the music/sound made them think about or feel. In the end, the children latched on and expanded on each others' ideas and composed a story inspired by Vivaldi's "Four Seasons (Spring)". 

Story: 

Zoe: "One morning, I was eating breakfast. I was enjoying my oatmeal." 

Keira: "After I finished my breakfast, I walked towards my playroom. While I was playing, a blue flower that bloomed outside my window caught my attention. Shortly after, I noticed a purple flower too." 

Theo: "I was looking at the blue flower and the petals and suddenly, I couldn't believe my eyes, but right there, next to my window, there was a deer." 

Louis: " The wind started blowing and it blew the blue flower away." 

Serena: "The blue flower flew up in the air and it landed on the wood chips at the playground." 

Theo: "People were playing and didn't notice the flower. They were stepping on it." 

Keira: "A little boy noticed the squished flower. He picked it up and found a spot to plant it in the dirt." 

Serena: "A new flower bloomed." 

Zoe: "It was growing taller and taller and more beautiful." 

Theo: "It grew so beautiful, but the petals started falling off. The flower died." 

And that was the end of our story. The children carefully listened to the music and I observed that when the tempo increased, the characters became more elaborate and the ordinary scenes became more intense. For example, it occurred when the children wrote the scenes with the people stepping over the flower, and the deer appearing in the image.