I draw the line. Begin to recognize characteristic sounds of instruments in string family. For the sake of economy, we are building the lesson around all of the episodes of The Carnival of the Animals , since there is a great deal of diversity in the way the strings are used and a wonderful sense of wit and fun throughout the piece. If you happen to own recordings of the Mendelssohn, by all means feel free to use it to illustrate violin virtuosity. He subtitled the work Grand Zoological Fantasy , and it is full of musical puns and fun.
Children have a wonderful time identifying the animals that are portrayed in each episode.
Be sure you have listened yourself a few times before playing it for the class, since the episodes pass very quickly. The piece we will listen to today is called The Carnival of Animals . If they cannot identify it, you could make movements of playing up and down a keyboard as a clue. Tell the children that there are two pianos playing almost all the time in this piece. Finally, play the first two sections through again, and tell them you will listen to the rest of the piece at their next lesson when you will also play a kind of animal guessing game with them.