Southwest Children's  Literature

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It Rained on the Desert Today

In the classroom/library:

It Rained on the Desert Today is most appropriate for students in kindergarten through third grades.

Lesson plan: Goals: to use literature to develop background information; to hear and compose music from a poetic story

Objectives: Students will acquire a basic understanding of the water cycle. Students will learn of monsoon rainstorms in the desert and will compose music to mimic a thunderstorm.

Core Curriculum: SCIENCE : Foundations level : (1) Students will learn of the water cycle. (2) Students will learn of the scarcity of water in the desert and the importance of summer monsoon rains. (3) Students will study desert plants and animals. MUSIC : Foundations level: (1) Students will accompany a story with appropriate instruments, body percussion and environmental sound. (2) Students will recognize dynamic changes and will be able to communicate those changes with their instruments.

Sequence:
(1) Play song: "Must be a Monsoon!" by Patty Horn from her album In the Shade of the Saguaro (1996)
(2) Read: Water Dance by Thomas Locker. Use hand motions with students to reinforce the order of the water cycle.
(3) Read: It Rained on the Desert Today by Ken and Debby Buchanan.
(4) Discuss the water cycle - have students draw a picture depicting the water cycle.
(5) Discuss the phenomena of monsoons in relation to the water cycle.
(6) Discuss a thunderstorm sequentially - e.g. rumbling in the distance, thunder, beginning rain, a deluge of rain with thunder, slowing rain, etc.
(7) Use instrumentation to replicate a rain storm. Some options: Orff instruments (glockenspiels, metallophones, xylophones) set up in a pentatonic scale (Solfage syllables do, re, mi, so and la), finger cymbals, wind chimes, rain sticks, sand blocks, tom-toms, tambourines, shaker eggs, the student's own bodies and environments (e.g. slapping their desks, clapping, stomping feet on floor). Discuss the dynamics of a storm - have the students adjust their volume and number of instruments used to portray the volume of a storm. Tape the students' musical version of the monsoon storm.

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