If you follow my work, you know that I am obsessed with Broadway musicals. When I was in the classroom, I used musical theater to talk about and teach things to the students about social issues and history all while learning about music. I loved it, and they could tell I loved it, so they loved it too.
It all started with
"The Sound of Music". I remember showing it to my 6th graders during my first year teaching. They loved it until it got to the part where the Von Trapp family was trying to escape. They would tune out, and I would be dealing with restless children who didn't understand the historical context. They didn't understand the covert conversations the Captain and Maria were having. They didn't understand why Uncle Max and the Captain were at odds.
But, boy...when I realized that and then started teaching about World War II and the holocaust before I started showing the movie...with just a brief 30 minute introduction...it all shifted. They started the movie watching for possible covert Nazi's (Ralph, 17 going on 18 is the first they see). Then, they start to understand how the holocaust could happen...People just ignoring what is going on around them because they thought it didn't affect them.
I've visited Sachsenhausen. It was one of the first prototypes of what ultimately became Auschwitz and some of the other camps.
I took the walk from the train through the town to the concentration camp just like the people who were taken there involuntarily.
I heard the stories about how, at first, they just shot people one at a time, and to speed up the killing they started gassing them en masse. I heard the stories about how they would do experiments, removing parts of people's brains in order to see how it would impact them. The stories are plenty, and they are horrific.
Teaching this to the students before, during and after they watch this profound important work of art called "The Sound of Music" helps them to understand the fear they see in the movie but are unable to grasp without context.
This activity is more than just putting on a movie musical.
We are teaching incredibly important things through the movie.
It is for that reason, that I began creating a line of products based on the teaching I did through musical theater and Broadway shows. Each lesson is filled with tons of activities to expand the learning and understanding, all while studying music. These are great for general music teachers, choral teachers, and social studies teachers.
Please leave reviews for this product. It helps teachers to hear from you about it, it helps me make my products better for you, and it helps you because you get TpT credits towards future products!
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