Composition Activities

So I'm a little under the weather, and I seemed to have lost my voice. As a music teacher that is a bit of a problem considering it is my instrument of choice.

I've been reading up some on teaching composition, and developing relevant activities for my classes and its brought ups some questions as to who can I use these activities with, where (general, or heterogeneous classes) and how can I build on these activities to develop a knowledge of composition that is comparable to that of writing one's own stories.


The following audio files are the products of two general music classes (1st and 3rd grade). After the music making we listened to the audio file as a class, and I asked the kids to respond on the music. I didn't ask them for any specifics but if they touched on something really juicy I sorta used that as my opportunity to talk more about composition.

First Graders Composition Project.m4a


Third Graders Composition Project.m4a


I'm working out some larger ideas for both of these classes, and most importantly I want to make sure above all else that these activities are fun for the kids. Therefore what will be showing up here will be some of the trial and errors (hopefully within reason) towards my development of a composition project for two different age groups. We shall see...