eMediaVA has many musical resources that are perfect for both connecting to content and engaging with students. Videos may include songs performed by individuals, symphonies, or bands. Some instructional videos discuss instruments, history, cultures, and genres. Other videos sing about content like shapes or letters.
Music can be connected to content in many ways, but some specific examples are below:
- Diversity: The eMediaVA musical sources can show traditional clothing, environment, instruments, and dance of different cultures in the U.S. and beyond. Students can watch people from Scotland wear kilts and play bagpipes or people from many parts of Africa discuss their traditions for music and dance. Music is an excellent way for people to connect and find commonalities. Students could research similarities and differences between the music they like and the music of another culture.
- Language Arts: Music is a great way to have students visualize. They can write or draw what they see and feel when the music is played to get ideas for their own writing. They could also connect with music before listening to a read-aloud or reading a short story.
- Math: eMediaVA has videos that use music to teach math concepts like numbers and shapes. One of my favorite interactive tools for math is Chrome Music Lab. It allows students to create their own music and see patterns or count beats. Students can practice geometry by drawing shapes on the Kandinsky page. They can record themselves recalling math facts or skip counting on the Voice Spinner page and create a song.
- Science: An engineering project to create music makers is a resource on eMediaVA for 5th-grade students but could be tailored for various grade levels. There are many videos and interactive lessons on sound vibrations and how instruments make sounds. Other videos discuss how animals make sounds to survive and some cultures mimic the sounds of nature to create their music.
These musical resources are great to use in your lessons or allow students to explore themselves! Let us know how you’re using music across content in the eMediaVA Facebook group!
Amanda Knighton is an eMediaVA Ambassador and an elementary teacher in Middlesex County.