The Sound of Music Learning Experiences
This week we decided to watch The Sound of Music. I know what you must be thinking after last week’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks; what is it with this woman and musicals set during World War II? Don’t worry, next week we’ll take a detour and do something a little different. In fact, for our next learning experience we are turning to Sci Fi. Tune in next week for the big reveal!
The Sound of Music. I was so excited to see this movie on Disney Plus, but I didn't remember it being so long! It has a run time of 2 hours and 55 minutes! As I watched, I realized the reason I didn’t remember it being so long was because it was edited for T.V. So this is the long, unedited version, complete with an intermission and ‘En Tract which my kids found fascinating. So it’s a long movie, but do what works for you. Hey, it’s summer during Coronavirus. If you need a morning, start it after breakfast and you’ll end around lunchtime! If your kiddos are like mine and would lose interest, show it over two day. Or play the parts you like. My girls love the singing and anything that has to do with the kids. So we generally fast forward though the credits, skip the scenes with just Captain Von Trapp, the Baroness, and Max, “Climb Every Mountain” and “Somewhere in My Youth” (although I love that part) and instead we opt to watch The Lonely Goatherd 3 times in a row. We tend to even stop the movie when it gets to the concert at the end. At their age, it’s a good stopping point, but if your kids are older, they might like the suspense at the end and have an understanding as to why they are fleeing into the mountains.
So now that you’ve been forewarned about the length of this movie, let’s get started.
Supplies Needed:
-Map, Atlas, or Globe
-Paper, Pencils, Colored Pencils, Markers,
-Watercolor paints and paper
-string, thread, yarn, or fishing wire
-a stuffed animal
-two rulers, two craft sticks, two chopsticks, or two twigs of some kind
The Hook: Where Is Austria?
The reasons I turned to this movie right after Bedknobs and Broomsticks are two-fold. For one, it takes place during the same time frame of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but from a different country’s perspective. Two, my daughter got really into the music store she made in last week’s learning experience (which you can read here), so I felt that following up with a movie featuring singing and music was a natural next step.
As in last week’s experience, I would start out with some context. Where is Austria? Look it up on a map, globe, or atlas. You can always pull up an online map, but whenever possible tactile experiences are the best. My daughter loved looking at our atlas. She had so many questions about different countries, asking “Which country is the biggest?” (Russia) and “Which country has the most people? (The answer: China, to which she replied, “Oh! I thought you were going to say San Francisco!” We have some worked to do on cities vs. states vs countries.) Look at Austria in relation to England. Tell your children that this movie takes place in the same time as Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but in a different country.
The Sound of Music is based on the actual Von Trapp family so my children had a lot of questions afterward about the real family. So you can always look up some facts about the family and even watch Julie Andrews yodel with the real Maria here! As always, don’t leave your child to watch Youtube unattended. You never know what ad they might show or what video might be auto-loaded next.
Now you’re ready to watch the movie and sing your heart out!
Do-Re-Mi: An ABC Adventure
Do-Re-Mi is one of the classic songs from the movie. You know the one: “Do, a deer, a female deer…”. That song will be the inspiration for today’s activity. Just as Maria lists animals or objects that go with each note (Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do) our activity will have the children write a noun (person, place, or thing) to go with each letter of the alphabet.
If you have some ABC books on hand, these are some great resources for your children to look at. You can read one to them. There are SO many out there. The three I used were A is for Apple, Alphablocks, and A You’re Adorable.
After reading these books to my kids, I invited them to make their very own ABC books. With 26 letters in the alphabet, and therefore 26 pages in the book, this is not an activity to do all in one day, but it can be a labor of love throughout the week. Depending on the age of your child, you can take it to different levels.
If your child isn’t writing yet, you can encourage drawing pictures for each letter. Another option for this activity would be to take a paper and divide it into sections and write the letters of the alphabet, one in each square. Your child can then add to the picture to make something else; a super fun activity that I loved as a kid!
If your child is writing, but is in the early stages, you can encourage writing one word. If the child is a little older, encourage writing a sentence. For a challenge, encourage writing a book by theme. For example, a book with all fruits and vegetables, a book of animals, or a book of all things found in California. Your child can also illustrate the book. Once it’s done, it’s a book your children will treasure and read over and over to themselves—a great way to see themselves as authors.
Eidelweiss: A Practice in Observational Drawing and Watercolor
Eidelweiss is another beautiful song from this movie. What is an eidelweiss your child may ask? Look it up on the computer and check it out together. The edelweiss is a flower- “small and white, clean and bright” as the song says. Next, have some flowers on your table and encourage your children to observe them. Notice parts of the flower together- the stems, leaves, stamen, and petals. My daughters used little magnifying glasses to get a closer look. After observing them, encourage them to draw them. When their drawings are complete they can add watercolor. I picked fresh flowers from our yard for the girls to observe, draw, and paint. No fresh flowers? No problem! Find something else your child can observe and draw, like a bowl of fruit or a fake flower arrangement. You can talk about still life paintings and the artists who draw them, like Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, and Georgia O’Keefe. There are many paintings by these artists that you can check out on Google images.
My Favorite Things: A Writing Prompt
Ahh. My Favorite Things. This is one of the songs my girls knew immediately. How it got to be a Christmas song, I have no idea, but there it is. They sang along, singing their own version of what they thought the lyrics were. I get a kick out of it when kids do that. Anyway, this song is a perfect provocation for children to think of their own favorite things. Encourage them to make a list. They can always illustrate the list as well by drawing or painting their favorite things.
The Lonely Goatherd: Fun with Marionettes
Hands down, my 4 year old’s favorite part of the movie was The Lonely Goatherd scene with the marionettes. She wanted to watch it over and over. I remember that being my favorite part, too, when I was a kid and wishing I had marionettes like that. Well, we decided to do just that; make our own marionettes!
There are several different ways to make marionettes. I did a combination of this video and this video to turn our very own stuffed animals into marionettes. The first video is definitely the easiest, if you have two rulers since the thread or fishing line can go straight through the holes in the rulers. Since we didn't have the rulers, we just overlapped two craft sticks. If you have an older kid and want to get super fancy, try this video with toilet paper rolls! This one was super cute, but at my children’s ages I knew I would’ve been the one doing all the work. Older kids would love this, though, and could modify to whatever animal they wanted.
So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!- Goodbye in different languages
Another one of my girls’ favorite songs was the “So Long, Farewell” song. We used it as an inspiration to research how to say goodbye in different languages. Again we busted out the atlas and I encouraged my 6 year old to choose different countries on the map. We then looked up how to say goodbye in these various languages using Google Translate. We wrote them on a large piece of card stock to create a poster.
Baking Pretzels: An Austrian (and German!) Delicacy
And now for a fun cooking activity! I was wondering about Austrian cuisine, as I assumed it would be similar to German cuisine. Both countries are know for the pretzel. Who doesn’t love a delicious pretzel? Tradition says that pretzels are shaped the way they are because it is the shape of an old prayer position. An excellent children’s book featuring pretzels is Walter the Baker by Eric Carle. We read that book before diving into making pretzels. You can also find several videos of people reading Walter the Baker on Youtube. Just remember to watch Youtube with your kids as you never know what might be shown. Afterward, make and enjoy some delicious pretzels! You can find a great recipe here. I followed the comments when making ours and only used 4 cups of flour instead of 4 and a half. They turned out delicious!
I hope you have as much fun as we have doing these Sound of Music Learning Activities! Auf Wiedersehen!
~Nicole