My New "Sound of Music" Unit

I love "The Sound of Music" movie...so much so that I went to Salzburg and took The Sound of Music bus tour, and I got all of the behind the scenes stories.

While there, I also took the train to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and walked through the town of Sachsenhausen to the camp and took a tour of the camp.

It is with that point of view that I created this unit for my middle school students.

I wanted them to certainly enjoy the movie, but I also wanted to give them a deeper understanding of the real life events that were happening during the time the Sound of Music is set. I wanted to help them connect the dots.

As you teach this unit, you will connect with your students during the discussions.

This Sound of Music Unit will work best with mature 10 year olds and up to age 15 who are in social studies and music classes. You will get a word find, a 60 question viewer's guide for students with teacher answer key, two 10 question quizzes with answer key, and a discussion guide that will help you link the events of the movie to real world history. This unit will guide you in discussions about the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler, the Anschluss, Nazi's and how it relates to the dramatization of the Von Trapp's real life experience during that time. Your students will enjoy watching one of the greatest movie musicals of all time while learning about one of the darkest times in World History.

I showed the movie every year to my 5th and 6th graders during my 30 years teaching public school, and I led these discussions with them after realizing many of the students didn't understand why the family was hiding after the Captain avoided working with the Third Reich. Even if your students have seen the movie before, this unit will give the students a greater appreciation for it, and and it will help them want to dig deeper.

You will start the unit with a word find that leads to a discussion before you begin watching the movie. Your students will use the 60 question viewer guide as they watch. During the days you watch, you will end with a discussion about the movie plot and relate the characters to real life events from that time period. You will administer two quizzes during the time of the unit. At the end of the unit, you can choose to watch the Oprah Winfrey interview with the actors in which they tell fun stories about the filming process and what that was like. You will also get links to reliable sites with other information about the Holocaust and the real Von Trapp Family.

If you have a deep interest this period of history and want to teach your students about more than the surface value of this musical movie, this will be a great unit for you to use with your students!

Click here to view it in my TpT Store.