What a Wonderful World is one of my favorite songs and has such a great message. When using this book, we watch and listen, then create our own songs of things we are grateful for! I have done it as a whole class, but it could be a great composition project as well! These are some of my favorite pages:
To create our songs, after reading the book/ listening to the song we list as a class things we are grateful for, or things that cheer us up, or things that bring light when we are feeling down. After our list is complete (I try to get something from each kid), we sort the list into Rhythm Building Block Chunks (see picture). Your chunks could look different depening on what grade you are working with.
After we write our list, we use Chrome Music lab to create our song! Students choose the colors needed for each syllable of our chosen words. For each song I chose 4-8 items from our list. We then came up with a pattern for the percussion and sang our songs! Two examples are shown below!
This lesson is great for any time of year, but especially during the Holdiay Season! It is always great to reflect on the joy of the season and focus on what we are grateful for, especially after this rough 2020!
