Music K to 1
Thoughts, Images, and Feelings

It is expected that students will:

• represent personal thoughts, images, and feelings experienced in classroom repertoire
• identify elements of expression that evoke thoughts, images, and feelings

To view the prescribed learning outcomes for Thoughts, Images, and Feelings in other grades click on an icon below.

• Bring to class contrasting examples of music to illustrate changes in dynamics and tempo. Have students describe the changes in their own words (e.g., fast versus slow, loud versus soft). Perform classroom repertoire with changes in dynamics and tempo. Encourage students to describe how these changes affect the thoughts and feelings they experience, and the images evoked.
• Ask students to suggest a familiar song. Have them sing the song using different emotions (e.g., happy, angry).
• Have students work in groups to discuss a familiar song. Prompt them with questions such as: How would you describe it? Ask them to suggest alternative words or new verses for the song.
• Play a selection of program music. Ask students to move around the room, exploringvarious movements suggested by the melodies, dynamics, and tempos.
• Have students create introductions and endings (e.g., using voice, instruments, movement, sound effects) for classroom repertoire to convey a given mood.
• Select and play two contrasting music pieces. Lead a discussion in which students identify similarities and differences in the thoughts, images, and feelings evoked by the music. Record the results in a Same-Different chart.
• Play a selection of music that uses contrasting articulations (e.g., staccato and legato). Challenge students to draw, describe, or develop short movement sequences representing their responses to the music.
• Provide opportunities for students to explore the variety of sounds that instruments and voices can produce, and to discuss their similarities and differences. Students can then work individually or in groups to create and present soundscapes to represent stories, poems, fantasies, and so on. The soundscapes might incorporate changes in tempo, dynamics, and timbre.

Suggested Assessment Strategies

• After students listen to classroom repertoire with changes in dynamics and tempo and describe how these changes affect their thoughts or feelings, play the music again and have them move in response to it in appropriate ways. Note evidence that they are able to respond to differences in:
  • tempo
  • volume
  • dynamics (legato versus staccato)
• Have students sort sounds from homemade or school instruments into families, putting together all the sounds that are alike. Read and chant a story, and ask students to enhance it by choosing from the families of sounds. Have them give reasons for their choices and then record their selections. Read the story again, using the selected sounds to enhance the story. Look for evidence that students are able to:
  • identify the timbre of individual voices and instruments
  • accurately sort and classify sounds
  • experiment with vocal sounds
• Provide students with sheets of circles that represent blank faces. As they listen to different music selections, invite them to fill in the faces to show how the music makes them feel. Some students might be able to label their faces with the names of the selections.
• After students listen to a music performance or selection of music, have them paint or use pastels to represent the feelings, thoughts, or images of the music. Look for evidence that they can:
  • make connections between music and colours or visual images
  • offer reasons for their selection of colours
  • express their responses to the music

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