It Rained on the Desert Today
In the classroom/library:
It Rained on the Desert Today is most appropriate
for students in kindergarten through third grades.
Lesson plan: Goals: to use literature to develop background
information; to hear and compose music from a poetic story
Objectives: Students will acquire a basic understanding
of the water cycle. Students will learn of monsoon rainstorms in the
desert and will compose music to mimic a thunderstorm.
Core Curriculum: SCIENCE : Foundations level : (1) Students
will learn of the water cycle. (2) Students will learn of the scarcity
of water in the desert and the importance of summer monsoon rains. (3)
Students will study desert plants and animals. MUSIC : Foundations level:
(1) Students will accompany a story with appropriate instruments, body
percussion and environmental sound. (2) Students will recognize dynamic
changes and will be able to communicate those changes with their instruments.
Sequence:
(1) Play song: "Must be a Monsoon!" by Patty Horn from
her album In the Shade of the Saguaro (1996)
(2) Read: Water Dance by Thomas Locker.
Use hand motions with students to reinforce the order of the water cycle.
(3) Read: It Rained on the Desert Today
by Ken and Debby Buchanan.
(4) Discuss the water cycle - have students draw a picture
depicting the water cycle.
(5) Discuss the phenomena of monsoons in relation to the
water cycle.
(6) Discuss a thunderstorm sequentially - e.g. rumbling
in the distance, thunder, beginning rain, a deluge of rain with thunder,
slowing rain, etc.
(7) Use instrumentation to replicate a rain storm. Some
options: Orff instruments (glockenspiels, metallophones, xylophones)
set up in a pentatonic scale (Solfage syllables do, re, mi, so and la),
finger cymbals, wind chimes, rain sticks, sand blocks, tom-toms, tambourines,
shaker eggs, the student's own bodies and environments (e.g. slapping
their desks, clapping, stomping feet on floor). Discuss the dynamics
of a storm - have the students adjust their volume and number of instruments
used to portray the volume of a storm. Tape the students' musical version
of the monsoon storm.