Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars!

11/8/18

This week's lesson was the most obvious lesson for arts integration. The students learned a little chant to  help them learn the order of the planets! The lesson started off by having them slapping their laps on beats one and two, then clapping on beat three with a rest on beat four. Once they  had that pattern going, I recited them the chant: 

"I bought a Mercury to go and visit Venus

But how on Earth can I afford to go to Mars? 

Jumping  Jupiter, Saturn sails on Saturday 

Uranus says that Neptune's selling Pluto's cars. 

Oh me! Oh my! A mix up in the sky!  

Let's put the planets back in order, everybody try!"

The students then learned the chant by breaking it down into smaller chunks. I'd recite a line, then they'd  recite a line until they felt solid. Then I'd state two lines and  they'd recite both back to me, so on and so forth until they got the whole song!

Once they felt comfortable repeating the whole thing, we took out all the words between the planets. The goal was to think the words of the chant in their head without saying them out loud so they could just say the name of the planets. This was made  possible by the consistent beat we set up in the beginning with the slap claps.

Then, the game began! The students played an elimination style game where they'd each take turns saying the name of the planets. If they said  the wrong one,  or  got off of the beat, they were out! Each group of desks played until there was only one student left from each clump, then the winners all played each other until there was one class champion. It was lots of fun, and the students were able to work on keeping a steady beat, keeping a rhythm over the beat, while learning the names of the planets. It was lots of fun, and the students asked to play again as soon as we were done!