The apple under the apple tree-D

4th Grade Physics:  Weird orchestras
Chapter 4 (Greek Educational System).

Go to the lesson

fruit-picker-logo 

 

The case-study also exists in 3d Grade- physical education, more simplified.

The lesson in the 4th grade version is not limited to physical education. It can also include entire chapters from music courses of the 3d and 4th Grade, such as chapters: Seeking the rhythm of music, the game of sound and silence, Strongly, Slowly, fast etc

Materials for the lesson

The previous day before, the teacher tells children to bring:

Small Stones (there are decorative in each house, if not on the street and in the parks)

Wooden kitchen spoons for coking.

Small pans or coffee pots (small casseroles).

Soup spoons.

The teacher separates the children so as the next day, they can bring a variety of percussion instruments.

The Teacher’s bell

Layout of the classroom

The desks are at the sides, empty space in the middle.

The course is best to be done in the yard.

1st Phase

The teacher divides the children into two groups.

Musicians and dancers (or harvesters/apple collectors).

The teacher tells the children that an apple tree rose in the middle of the class (with the help of our imagination, off course).

The apple tree has many apples, ready to fall. But we cannot reach as they are higher than us. But we will hit them finally with our percussion instruments and our dance.

2nd Phase

Learning the rhythm and the dancing of the apple-rain (all the children, once divided into the two groups, will play both roles in succession).

3d Phase

The rhythm of the apple-rain.
Stones and wooden spoons hit the first 3 beats (3 first rounds).

Metal pans and spoons give a beating when the hand rises up to reach the apples.

The whistles whistle when the apple drops and the harvesters/apple collectors bent-down to get it.

The dance of apple-rain.
The students of the group of harvesters/apple collectors enter, one behind the other, in a circle. The center of the circle is the apple tree (of our imagination), marked by the children of the group of musicians, sitting in the middle and playing the percussion instruments.

Movement A. Starting with the right foot, they are making, by stepping-down their feet (two times each), three steps.

(Percussion instruments: Stones and wooden spoons)

Movement B. Stretch the left hand high (to get the apple).

(Percussion instruments: pans and Metal Spoons)

Movement C. They bend to catch the (imaginative) apple that fell down.

(The musicians, who have the whistles, accompany the bending with a whistling sound).

4th Phase

The groups can exchange roles when the teacher decides.

ATTENTION!!!
Dance and music can be anything the teacher thinks or wants. It is better to have certain length of time so as to help the children to learn, to pass the pace and movement into their body and, rhythmically, follow the steps.

It is better for the course to take place in the yard, especially if there is a tree, but also because of the noise that will be caused and which might be disturbing in the classroom.

Suggestion: (If the teacher likes he/she can use the following song)

A song with a rhythmic recitation from all the children and a dialogue between the two groups.

 

Apple collectors:
Stomach empty and poor
I need an apple for sure
I see it on a branch up high
It falls down will be mine

Musicians (answer)
Give me one or two I’m hungry
I am gonna be furius and angry
I also see it  up and  high
will be- not yours- but mine