Carnival of the Animals Day 1

Introducing Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns

• Introduction and Royal March of the Lion
• Hens and Roosters
• Wild Asses: Swift Animals
• Tortoises
• The Elephant
• Kangaroos
• Aquarium
• Personages with Long Ears
• The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods
• Aviary
• Pianists
• Fossils
• The Swan
• Finale

I always looked forward to this unit each year.  It is an introduction to composition giving children an understanding that music can be used to describe something.  "From the beginning, Saint-Saëns regarded the work as a piece of fun." (Wiki-pedia)  I fully intended that this whole unit would be fun!

I wanted to start by getting the children excited about the music and to not only hear the music but see the instruments.  I chose to start with a video.  Choosing a good video that will engage the children is not always easy.  At the time I was teaching, the best one on the market was a DVD featuring Gary Burkoff.  You can find this one now on You Tube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uerDXMMGrS0

As I looked online today, I see there are several options.  I still like the Gary Burkoff version for its integration of live persons, animations, and the orchestration.

There are numerous versions on You Tube.  Feel free to use whichever form you like to introduce the music.  

FYI:  Everyone likes different pieces of music and children are no different.  With that in mind, it has been my experience that not all of these pieces will be entertaining to the children.  That does not mean that I did not use them.  However, it may not be necessary to play an entire piece of music to teach a certain concept. 

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Disney Productions included the Introduction in it's 2000 version of Fantasia.  This can be found on You Tube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poz9nZCFmb0

Another older version with the Ogden Nash poems is the Bugs Bunny version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUsZ-M09SMw

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If you prefer a book rather than video, then you might like this one.  The Carnival of the Animals (Book and CD) Hardcover by Jack Prelutsky  (Author) , Camille Saint-Saens (Creator) , Mary GrandPre (Illustrator)

Jack Prelutsky and Mary GrandPre have teamed up to create a winner.  America’s first Children's Poet Laureate has written all-new verses to accompany the composer Camille Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals, and the illustrator of the Harry Potter books has turned these rollicking rhymes into a picture-book fun fest. Included is a CD of the music and of Jack Prelutsky reading the verses. A note to parents and teachers by Judith Bachleitner, head of the music department at the prestigious Rudolf Steiner School in New York City, suggests ways preschoolers can act out the music—tromp like an elephant, hop like a kangaroo, glide like a swan—or, for older children, be creatively inspired by this joyful work.

Carnival of the Animals Day 2

Today we want to make a connection between what the music actually does, how it sounds, and how it is played to the animals that it is describing.  So the children will each get a packet of cards that has a picture of each animal.  The cards will remind them of the animals in the music they listened to yesterday.

With very young children, you may want to have them choose two or three cards at a time so that there are not so many choices.  So let's say that you choose the turtle, the kangaroo, and the aquarium.  Take time before you listen to the music for each animal to predict what the music will do.  Which music will be the slowest? Which animal moves the slowest of all three?  Which moves the fastest?  Which music might sound like hopping?  What will the fish in the aquarium be doing?  What will that sound like?  Ask any questions you like to get their minds thinking.  Then as you play each piece of music, they will be able to identify the correct animal because they have already been predicting what it will sound like.

Do this same exercise with three more of the songs and cards.  Choose animals where the differences will be pretty obvious.

Now for the next set of cards, let the children ask the questions.  Choose three animals and invite them to ask you what to listen for.  They will be able to do that.

And then for the final group of pictures, ask the children to think their questions in their head and then to think the answers. You are teaching them strategies that they can use in many situations.

With older children you could easily do half of the cards with the questions and then end with them thinking their own questions and answers in their head before you play the last pieces of music.

It is a great exercise and will help them on Day 3 when you play the game called "I See It".

Here are the animal pictures - 4 to a page.  Print on cardstock and cut them out.  Laminate if they will be used often.

Remember how I said that Saint Saens was having fun when he wrote this music.  There are three pieces in particular that are actually funny and the kids can learn to recognize what this composer did.

1.  The Tortoise - the melody for the Tortoise is the Can Can - played very, very slowly.  Young children may or may not have heard the Can Can.  Here is a funny You Tube versions they would enjoy.  It's a wedding and the bride and guest are all dancing to the Can Can.  Just a minute will be enough for the kids.  Once they see the fun of the Can Can itself, they will laugh to think the Tortoise is doing this same music!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc4NoFZUZkA

2.  The Pianists - the piano plays some very beautiful music throughout the Carnival of the Animals.  But when this particular piece comes along, the pianists are practicing their scales!

3.  The Fossils - Now we need the sound of bones so the composer adds a xylophones.  Everyone who has ever done an animation for this piece has this being played on the bones of a skeleton!  Cute idea!

Carnival of the Animals Day 3

Today the children get to act out the animals as they hear the music.  Rather than just play the music and tell them to be a fish or a bird, etc, play the game called "I See It".

In order to play this game, the children will become the animal whose music they hear.  So you start playing say the Kangaroo's music.  The children listen and as soon as they know which animal it is, they become that animal and start moving around.  You should by now see kids hopping all over the room.  As soon as most of the children are doing the correct animal, you say "I See It" and they have to freeze right where they are until the next piece begins.  To reinforce their learning, say something like "Yes, I see kangaroos jumping all over the room!"

Do this with all of the pieces.  You may have to give a little assistance this first time - especially on the slow pieces which they may confuse.  You can play this often until you see them successfully identifying the pieces.

Here are some You Tube clips of the various pieces.  For this exercise we don't care what the graphics are. Remember you can use Free You Tube Downloader to download these pieces as mp3 files if you prefer to do that.  I personally like some of the You Tube videos for the kids.  The Fossils is a really good one!

• Royal March of the Lion  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL1M7v1lgYM
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• Hens and Roosters  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEd7Ovt4cWE
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• Tortoises  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPHqJTpgo-U
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• The Elephant  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1nVDoCnsNk
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• Kangaroos   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae_Obzv0XeI
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• Aquarium   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyFpZ5MZ7kk
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• Personages with Long Ears   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY8_G8cYi_Y
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• The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jUsX9JwoI0
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• Aviary   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1PQRu_C5fQ
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• Pianists   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y1ntDP07rM
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• Fossils    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGI-hYVslPU
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• The Swan   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F93GtiYmWlw
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Carnival of the Animals Day 4+

Now it is time to make some fun of your own!  The children now know that you can use instruments to describe an animal.  So it is time to do exactly that!  I like to encourage them to choose an animal that was not in Carnival of the Animals so that they have to create their own ideas.  So let's just imagine a few:

Rabbit - hopping around on a xylophone or keyboard?

Snake - slithering through the grass - how about a mallet rubbing itself along a xylophone or a maraca shaking softly to create the sound of the snake slithering but all of a sudden it becomes a rattlesnake ready to attack!

Mouse - tiny little sounds- high notes on the piano or any other instrument you have?

Horse galloping - mallets playing on wood

Get the idea?  This is an exercise in creativity.  There is no right or wrong.  It's time to explore musical sounds and they can be played on a regular instrument, a pan, a wooden chair, or anything you can imagine that will create the effect you want to create.

With older children, especially if they play an instrument already, then it is fun for them to explore how they can do this on that instrument.  But with young children, anything is fair game.

Now if you really want to have some fun, try doing a shadow puppet type theater and let the children make their own animated videos of their music.

Here is a good example of using black paper cutouts with a white sheet and backlight to make an effective shadow puppet show:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUcz2W9acAQ