Cynthia Guzman

Prof. Christensen

May 9, 2017

EDU 280

Multicultural Mini Lesson Summary

My group and I chose the subject Music to teach to third grade students. The standard we

chose is standard 9.0 SWBAT demonstrate knowledge of the historical periods and cultural

diversity of music. The multicultural goal of my group’s multicultural mini lesson plan is:

develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes to function in a diverse society through music.

Our slideshow presentation is first going to begin with Jamie speaking. She is going to

introduce each of the members and the standards and goals of the lesson. Jamie will then play the

“We Are the World 25 for Haiti” music video to the class which contains easily recognizable

artists. She then explains that this is an example of people from different cultures and music

genres coming together for a good cause. Miranda will then introduce our slideshow and the two

interactive games we came up with. Valerie will lead these two games. The first game involves

Valerie playing the sounds of different instruments and the class has to guess what instrument it

is. The instruments we chose for our lesson plan are drums, maracas, rain stick, pan flute and

pellet drums. Now having introduced these instruments we move on to the second game, which

is guessing where each instrument originates from. The names of the instruments will appear on

the left of a two column chart and on the right side the country of origin will appear. These two

games involve the class to shout out their answers which uses the auditory and visual learning

styles. The presentation ends there and the mini lesson begins.
 Cynthia, myself, will assign everyone to 5 groups of 2 members. I then explain the mini

lesson. Each group of 2 will be making an instrument of the 5 that were introduced in slideshow.

Each instrument will have their own station in the classroom where the students will go and build

the designated instrument. At each station there will be a worksheet with direction on how to

make the instrument along with facts. Each person from my group was assigned one of the five

instruments and will go to the corresponding group. While at their designated group, my group

members will be making the instruments along with the students but also sharing the history

behind the instrument. We will also be sharing any fun facts we found about our instruments. If a

group finished early, they are allowed to choose another instrument to make for extra fun. While

the groups are making their instruments, as background noise, we will be playing music quietly

that use the instruments we are building.

As the lesson comes to the end, Eric will lead the exit slip which is a classroom jam

session. The drums will begin, then the pellet drums, followed by the maracas, pan flutes and

rainsticks. Eric will explain that they way instruments from different cultures come together to

make harmonious music is how people come together as well, and how people should come

together. The mixing of beats is what makes music so great just like the mixing of cultures

makes people so great. If these instruments were isolated and made their own beats they sound

alright, but when mixed with other instruments they sounds amazing. This is the way people

should be looking at each other, as a way to better themselves and not as enemies. The lesson

ends here and each group takes their homemade instrument home.

I was assigned the maracas. I would explain to the students in my group that the maracas

originate in Puerto Rico and not in Spain, which is what I thought. Maracas were first used by
the native Indians, the Tainos, of Puerto Rico. Maracas also belong to the percussion family.

Maracas are essential to Latin American music and in the 21st century are being incorporated

more and more into pop songs. Maracas are traditionally made out of gourds and filled with

pebbles, beans, or seeds. In Paraguay maracas are only played by men. By teaching this

information to the students I am developing their knowledge on an instrument they wouldn’t

have thought twice about. It is also developing their knowledge of the Latin culture and how

their music does not necessarily involve electric guitars and drums all the time.