Theme and Variations

 Happy New Year! I love the feeling of coming back to school and feeling refreshed and relaxed. It doesn't always last for very long but I'm enjoying it nonetheless. 

Theme and Variations Bulletin Board

Before the break, the Grade 6s started a unit about Theme and Variations. This lesson idea came from one of my favourite sites, OMEA. I love the Minds On activity in this lesson. 

The "Theme" sheet for the circles

I started off by giving students a sheet of paper with three blank circles and asked them to change the circles into four different objects. I gave them about 5-7 minutes to do this or else they'd be at it forever! The students shared their pictures with a partner and we discussed the elements of art that they used to change their circles. I then related it to music. Don't you just love the Art/Music connection in this activity?


Here are some of my fave variations:

We are currently in the process of listening to a number of variations of "Jingle Bells" and identifying the elements of music that the composer changed. For our summative assessment, students will do the same activity but for "Are You Sleeping." Check out the Grade 6 unit on the OMEA site for some blackline masters and mp3s of "Are You Sleeping."

Click here for a full lesson plan to introduce theme and variations to your students.

Lesson 2 in this series gets your students working in groups to scaffold their learning. I give my students a melody map of a familiar song and with their group, they change it in some way.

Then, students co-create an anchor chart about how to change a melody and they compose two variations for their theme. We end off with a performance for the class and an exit ticket to assess their understanding. Check out Lesson 2 here.