When Was The Last Time...

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...that your students told you how exciting a lesson was?  Not just playing a game they've done before, or doing Boomwhacker play alongs?


I know how difficult it can be to get grade 7 and 8 students engaged. They're too cool for so many of the activities the younger kids do.  They need more depth to what they learn but at the same time, many just are not interested in a subject they're not going to continue in high school. They need movement just as much as younger kids, but not too much or they go feral. Their ability to read detailed text for extended times has been greatly diminished over the past five years.  No longer can you give a page of reading with questions for them to write out detailed answers. 


You might also be dealing with scheduling issues and just never having enough time.  At the school I'm at now, I get the class for 60 minutes, ONCE a week! Next week, I won't get them at all because we use a 5 day cycle and there's only 4 days. I should see them on Friday, but it's Good Friday so no school. Monday is also a day off, so I won't see them until Tuesday, which will mean they go from April 11 to 22 without music. It's hard to really get into material with so few classes. As well, we lose time when the kids come into class (especially after recess) and at the end of class. In reality, I get about 50 minutes with them. 


This World Instruments and Ensembles Scavenger Hunt is a fantastic combination of factual reading passages, movement, question trails and code words! This activity allows student to move around the classroom while utilizing their reading comprehension skills and answering questions. A mystery word and a secret 4 digit code will make your students eager to finish the task.

If you're looking for a unique way to teach Overall Expectation C3 from the Ontario Music Curriculum (Exploring Forms and Cultural Contexts), then this is perfect for you.


Start with reading the "Mission" story to the class (not depicted in image above). Have the text cards around the room--either hidden or in sight. It doesn't matter where each student starts. Each card includes a short reading passage about the historical or cultural significance of an ensemble or instrument, and a question trail. Students get a question on the card to determine the "code word". The answer is in the text of another card--so they have to go back around, scanning the cards to find the answer. They do this for all 10 cards, to find 10 code words. That's a lot of re-reading which will allow their brains to fully process the information and improve their comprehension!


Once they have all 10 code words, they unscramble the indicated letters to solve a mystery word. Then they follow some steps with the 10 digits they collected, to find the 4 digit code needed to solve the mission.



Includes:

  • teacher set up information
  • lesson ideas and extension suggestions
  • fictional mission story
  • 10 cards covering 16 instruments and 11 areas
  • code word recording sheet with 4 digit code instructions
  • answer page
Prep:

  • print the 5 pages with reading cards (1 copy of each page). Laminate if desired, and cut in half
  • print enough copies of the code word recording page for students
  • place the 10 reading cards around the room, hidden or in sight
  • read Mission story to students
This activity could easily fill up an hour's class. If you have to split it over two shorter classes, that's totally fine. Since it doesn't matter which card students start with, it's easy to pick up where they left off. The cards don't need to be placed in the same spots, so if they're in different spots for the second day, students won't rely on their memory of where they saw a card, and will have to spend longer searching!

To make this more musical, I suggest having examples playing in the background. Or you could set up a station with a computer and a YouTube play list. If you're ambitious, you could create a slideshow with links to the videos. It might also be fun to create QR codes for the videos and have students go around to those...and match them up with the card numbers.
Image by Monika Grafik from Pixabay

My other love is geography, and you can't teach world music without a map present. You can extend the activity by having more questions about the areas. This could tie in with history too!

If you really want to get cross-curricular, have the students continue the mission story, detailing what instruments the students found and how they fixed the plane's navigational system.

If any students have familiarity with the instruments, they could share. Students could also choose one instrument or ensemble and expand upon the passage, creating an informational slideshow with all students.

Think outside the box---or the music room. Music rarely exists within a bubble. So often the only connection with other subjects is when teachers use a song to teach a concept (like the Periodic Table song, or Jack Hartman videos). There's so much more you can do!

For more about this resource, check out it's TPT listing by clicking on any of the photos!




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