Student activities include Orff arrangements improvisation creative movement experience cooperative learning activities performance suggestions Chapters are divided into sections designed for use by classroom teachers without musical experience as well as by music educators. Designed to develop active, participatory listening, encourage communication skills, stimulate self-expression, provoke students to draw inspiration from their environment to create their own improvised music and contribute to deepening environmental awareness, the guide can be used as a sequence of lessons or in part. The program is awe-inspiring, musically superb and is an excellent example of the type of materials that can be developed which are educationally sound. The material is topnotch and useable in all grade levels. The twelve musical selections pay tribute to all seven continents, the oceans, the mountains and the desert.
Several pages are devoted to each musical selection.
The Student Book consists of related activity pages and additional background information for each composition. Emphasis in the Student Book is on providing a variety of opportunities for active individual and group involvement, cooperative learning and higher-level questioning which encourages critical thinking skills. Also included are creative projects in music and cross-curricular connections to other subject areas such as whole language, science, social studies and so on. The first half of the teaching notes for each composition has been developed for use by either a classroom or music teacher, or by both working together. It includes such topics as 'Getting to Know the Music', 'Classroom Extensions' and 'Ecological Insights'.