Composer Review

This week my preschool students have been reviewing the 4 composers they learned about in 2011:  Joseph Haydn (Papa Haydn), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Henry Mancini and Camile Saint-Saens.  The students also learned to recognize 5 compositions by these composers:  The Flight of the Bumblebee (Rimsky-Korsakov), the theme from the Surprise Symphony (Haydn), Baby Elephant Walk (Mancini) and Kangaroos and People With Long Ears (Saint-Saens). Some of these compositions we hadn't listened to in 6 or 8 months, so I was a bit intrepid when I started to present the material; I was afraid that perhaps the children wouldn't remember any of the material!  But once again, I was reminded of how smart young children are and how good their memories are!  For the most part, the children remembered all of the composers names and the compositions!!

I did this review with my Preschool and Prekindergarten classes.  So, for the most part, the children are ages 4-5 years old, with a stray 3-almost 4 year old thrown in the mix.  Here is what I did:

1.  I brought my composer pictures and asked the children if they could identify who each of them were.

2.  I printed out the following pictures and then explained to the children that each of the pictures represents a song by one of our composers.


  Surprise Symphony



Baby Elephant Walk




Kangaroos




Flight of the Bumbleebee





  People With Long Ears




3.  I played a short excerpt from a composition and then asked for a volunteer to find the picture that identifies the song and place that picture next to the composer who wrote it.

4.  I left the picture of the kangaroo for last and explained to the children that one of our composers wrote 2 of our songs - could they find the correct composer?

The children did remarkably well.  A couple of the kids thought that Haydn was George Washington and listening to young children say "Wimsky-Kosakof" always make me chuckle, but I couldn't have been more pleased with their recall.  Preschoolers are an amazing lot - they surprise me everyday and they make me proud to be a Preschool Music Educator.


Here are some pictures of the composers:





Rimsky-Korsakov





Saint-Seans





Mancini





Haydn