Instrument Families and "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra"

2nd grade has been learning about families of instruments in the orchestra: strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. We listened to Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," which features each family as well as the orchestra as a whole. First, we listened and followed a listening map. Next, we used our imaginations to come up with pictures, images, words, moods, etc. that each family reminded us of, and we put those images on paper. This reinforced the "voice" of each family so that we could more readily recall what each family sounded like in our next activity.

We assigned colors to each family of the orchestra (green, red, yellow, and blue), and each student was assigned a flashlight that shines one of those colors. We then listened to our piece of music and created a light show by recognizing each family's sound and shining our flashlights on the ceiling when we heard our "color."