We had such a wonderful week at the “Carnival of the Animals” Music Camp. Students enjoyed learning about Mr. Saint-Saens symphony Carnival of the Animals, while also learning the history of that time period, geography surrounding the area it was written, the animals for each movement and so much more.

I usually create and plan my own curriculum for camps or group classes but because I decided to split my camps between the younger children and the older children (or those that have had piano lessons before), I purchased this curriculum on musicmattersblog.com. Natalie Weber did a fantastic job on this curriculum with design and the organization aspect of it. I highly recommend!

The first thing I did after purchasing the curriculum, after studying it of course, is go to Staples to estimate the cost of binding the student workbook. Surprisingly, it was not too badly priced considering I needed a bulk amount. I am so glad they turned out well and the students can keep them and they will hold up really well!

For the gift, I wanted something that would have a practical use. I have done t-shirts in the past and really enjoy them, but this year I wanted something a little different. Instead of t-shirts, I purchased these canvas bags and had them embroidered by a very talented business lady in my church. She custom designed them for me and they turned out beautiful! I loved that the students could not only use them for the week but for their piano books in the future.

Set up was very easy, as it was held at my church. I used this awesome blue tooth speaker  that Natalie recommended along with youtube to play on the pieces. I also had a projector and iPad to project images or vocabulary definitions on the screen. It made everything so easy!

Students enjoyed coloring the different animals and writing the different rhythms down notated in the curriculum. They absolutely loved listening to the different rhythms and sounds each movement produced. We talked about  imagery and how music creates pictures in our minds about God’s creation around us. The main idea of this camp was that every part of our study, whether it be history, science or music, centered around one idea: that God is the Creator of it and knowing those subjects helps us understand more about Him.

As you can see from the top picture of the group, students are holding up an opened page in their workbooks. This is their composition. (except for Aeyla, she is holding up her piece that she practiced that week. silly girl.) Each learned how to compose their own motive and create a melody from it. Each student participated whether they knew how to play piano or not. It was so awesome to see their creative minds enjoying making music. I had almost all of them that could play through their composition at our “mini-recital” at the end of the last day. I did not get everyone’s picture but they all did a really great job!

My only regret was not getting more pictures. Here is the art project we did together. I failed to get pictures of their artwork but here is one of my own. My awesome husband cut all of these squares of wood and sanded them for me. The students loved this project. It was the highlight of the week! They chose which animal silhouette they wanted to do and after nailing all the nails in to create the shape they selected their colored string and made designs of their animals. Super fun!

I say it was a week, but it was really only 4 days. I had to cram a little bit to cover everything. Even still, there was so much we had to rush through. We had a blast though. I enjoyed it myself and the students seemed to love it. I will post about the younger kids music camp soon!