May the Fourth Be with You is coming up soon! In today’s blog, I will be sharing a few lesson ideas to incorporate Star Wars into your General Music classes! If you don’t already know, my name is Jessie and I am an Elementary Kinder-6th Grade General Music Teacher and, along with this blog, I also have a YouTube channel where I share lesson ideas, as well as Play-alongs and everything in the General music world!
Lesson Idea #1: Star Wars Solfa Practice Story (Blog Freebie!!!)
This activity involves patterns using So, La and Mi solfege syllables to achieve challenges throughout a Star Wars-inspired story to find BB-8, who has gone missing! This used to be on my TpT store, but I decided it worked better as a freebie!
My setup for this activity is to give each student their own paper music staff and 4-6 noteheads that they can use to notate their So, La and Mi patterns. For noteheads, I like to use those little clear pebbles that are often used in flower arrangements, but you can use whatever you’d like!
If you are already part of the Music and Motivate Community check out the freebie library to get this resource! If you are not, you can download it here!
Lesson Idea #2: Movement for Form – Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme) by John Williams
Setup:
- Students are setup in 2 lines facing each other (longways sets)
- Each student has one Steady Beat Lightsaber (Pool noodles, Check out Amy Abbott’s blog here for Rhythm Wars activities on TpT. They’re gold!)
Introduction: Get ready!
A Section (Main Theme) – Light Sabers:
- 8 beats – One student taps the steady beat on their partner’s lightsaber
- 8 beats – Other students taps the steady beat
- Repeat throughout the Intro
Interlude before the B section – Prepare to March:
- 4 beats – Lightsaber up next to your shoulder
- 4 beats – Turn to the Right
- 4 beats – March in place
B Section – Free March
- This is during the eerie part where the Woodwinds/Strings are in the background with fragments of the main theme throughout!
- Students march in space freely during this section
- Have fun with it! Tell the students they are hiding from Darth Vader!
- Teacher Tip:
- Tell the students that the music that they heard at the very beginning comes back at the end of this section and is their signal to get back to their Longways sets
A Section (Main Theme) – Light Sabers:
- Same as the first time around
Prepare to March:
- 4 beats – Lightsaber up next to your shoulder
- 4 beats – Turn to the Right
- 4 beats – March in place
“Peel the Banana”
- This is a common folk dance term where each line peels outward following each other (like a banana peel) with the head partners then creating a lightsaber bridge for the rest of the sets of partners to go through down to the end of the line. Oftentimes, this is used to rotate to a new set of students at the head of each set.
- This takes a little practice, but once the kids are successful with it once, then they’ve got it forever!
Up! (on Last Beat)
- On the very last beat of the piece, they all put their lightsabers up high in the air and do an awesome pose!
Lesson Idea #3: Mirroring Movement Practice – Rey’s Theme by John Williams
- First Lesson – Introduction/Exploration
- For the first time through this song, I like for it to be teacher-led movements that the students mirror to provide them with some movement vocabulary that could make sense (i.e. slow enough for students to copy, isolate body parts and add as they go)
- Second Lesson – Students in Partners
- Encourage students to explore being the leader and having a partner mirror their movements.
- Teacher Tip:
- I like to use a Triangle as a non-verbal signal for the leader to switch to mirroring the other person!
- Third Lesson – Extension Ideas – Add in Shadowing!
- Take this even farther by having the partners shadow each other instead of mirror and travel throughout the space of your room. The leaders can simply turn around to signal that they’re ready for their partner to lead the shadowing!
- You could also structure this activity where there are 4 leaders forming a diamond in the room with the rest of the class in the middle and have the leader turn to switch leaders!
Want more?? Here’s a bonus Blog Post from last year with another Freebie!
- Challenge your students to create and guess a melody from Star Wars using Chrome Music Lab’s Song Maker!!
I hope you found these lesson ideas helpful as you bring the magic of John Williams’ Star Wars themes to your music classroom! May the Fourth be with You!
