The Bear is Sleeping: Lesson Ideas

1. What skills are we building?

Aural skills

The aural activities help to develop your pupil’s ability to listen, sing, mark a pulse and echo a rhythm, which are assessed in the aural tests for this grade. Aural skills are foundational in helping your pupil to play musically and have a much deeper understanding of what they are performing.

Reading skills

The reading activities practice all the notation that is included in the piece. The random notation is to help your pupil identify the notes independently. The other miniature pieces also include notes within the piece, but also practise the style of tests in the initial grade exam (including articulation and dynamics). In the exam your pupil will only need to do a C major and D minor position, not F major.

Technical and creative skills

The technical activities are all based on pentascales, the first five notes of a scale. Here C major, D minor and F major are explored, the pentascales used in The Bear is Sleeping.  Pupils also get the opportunity to improvise their own tunes using these note patterns.

On the following pages, activities have been suggested in a weekly pattern. These lesson plans may move at a pace too quick or too slow for your pupil, so please feel free to amend these lesson ideas to suit your pupils' needs.