Cundieff Jessica Cundieff Jessica Jessica Cundieff Music 405 Ss-Music Lesson Plan 2

Mexico
Jessica Cundieff Grade 3

Standards:
MU: Pr4 2.3c Demonstrate and describe how selected music
connects to and is influenced by specific interests, experiences,
or purposes.
Social Studies: Standard #3 Societies are shaped by beliefs,
ideas, and diversity.
Benchmark 3.3: The student will investigate specific beliefs,
contributions, ideas, and/or diverse populations and connect
those beliefs, contributions, ideas, and/or diversity to
contemporary issues.

Objectives:
After the teacher introduces several types of Mexican folklore
dances and music the students will create their own dance to a
Mexican song with a contemporary meaning.
After the students present their dances they will develop an
essay consisting of at least five sentences. The essay will include
what message they were trying to convey with their dance and
how. Did they use the movement of the dance, the tone of the
music, or some other way?Perhaps add in here what
expectation you have as far as the dance is concerned. What
are you looking for? Will they include elements of Mexican
folk dancing, or will their dances be reflecting the words to their
song? Maybe neither of those, but think through what you want.

Materials:

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Background for teachers: Dance is something that has shaped
cultures since the beginning of time. It is a way people
communicated with each other, and how people told and passed
down stories. The lesson is supposed to provide an explanation
of how important dance is especially for Mexican cultures.
This lesson is meant to be an introduction for students into the
culture of Mexico. This would be a prequel lesson for a unit on
Mexico and Mexican Americans. The idea of the lesson is to get
students interested in a common interest, music.
The instructor should know some background information on
Mexican music. Some useful websites are:
http://www.ehow.com/about_6648556_spanish-influence-
american-music.html
http://latinmusic.about.com/od/countrie1/p/PROBASICS17.htm
This would be a great intro lesson for students to these topics.

Steps in the lesson:

Introduction/Building Background Knowledge:
The teacher would introduce the lesson by playing La
Cucaracha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfka9m6NhzE&list=PLE77
AE4EF5B27F44E
The teacher will ask the students to try to identify some of the
instruments they hear during the song.
She will then ask do any of the instruments sound familiar to
those in an American song.
Body: (Step-by-step scaffolding that includes teacher
modeling, guided work, and independent work)
The instructor will lead a discussion on what instruments played
in Mexican music have crossed over into American music.
The students will be given an opportunity to play with different
Mexican instruments and they will describe what instruments in
American music they sound like.
The instructor will give a brief history on Mexican music. Its
origins, how it originated, what stories the music and the
dances tell. Use the websites provided and any knowledge
one might have.
The teacher will go into the folklore of Mexican music
explaining the different types of dances where they
originate from and the types of music that goes along with
them.
http://mexfoldanco.org/mexican/folkloric/dance/mexican-hat-
dance.html
http://blog.privateislandparty.com/four-traditional-mexican-folk-
dances/
The students will then select a song to dance to. They will be
able to research different traditional Mexican tunes and
chose one that they like.
By themselves or in groups they will create a dance that
represents something going on in their lives. This would be
something that you could add into the expectation portion
of the objective. Reflect on this in your reflection. How
did the students dances turn out? Was it what you were
looking for? If not, describe how you might alter this part
to get at what you are looking for.
They will be given class time to practice and rehearse.

Closure:
The students will perform their dances to the class, explaining at
the end what their dances represented.
After the dance they will write a reflective essay.

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Assessment (linked directly to objectives):
Performance assessment: students will need to demonstrate the
dance for the rest of the class. It is a pass fail assignment. Points
will not be marked off for lack of technical dance. The purpose
of the assignment is for the students to understand that dance
can tell a story.
The essay will also be part of the assessment. The students will
need to accurately write about what they were trying to say
during the dance. The essay should include at least five well
developed sentences that are grammatically correct. AHA! Here
is what you need for the objective. How are they going to
demonstrate that their dance tells a story from their lives? Will
they explain it afterwards, or will they write about it?

Adaptations/Extensions (include at least one strategy for
differentiation):
Students who cannot move around because of disabilities will be
able to create story that has a soundtrack of Mexican music.
If students are not able to accurately to compose an essay they
can make a video telling the message they were trying to
convey.

Rationale: Dance is a way that people have expressed
themselves for thousands of years. By learning a unit on dance
students will learn in depth about Mexican culture and can also
connect that information to other cultures. This lesson gets
students interested in a culture they may not know a lot about,
through a common denominator, dance and music. One may not
be able to understand the lyrics of the songs but everyone knows
about music and through the exploration of the songs they will
find similarities between two types of music. This is a great way
to introduce a unit on another culture. Yes.

Next Steps/ Connections to Other Subjects: What lesson will
come next? How will you build on this learning?
This lesson would be a spring board for a whole unit on Mexico.
Once you have established an interest in the culture through
music it will be easier to find more connections. This is also a
great format for introducing other cultures. There are very few
cultures that do not use music and dance and you could compare
and contrast music and dance through all the cultures your class
is learning about.

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Mexico

Jessica Cundieff Grade 3

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