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. 

2. Week 1 & 2 - Aural activities – teacher resource

Background info on the piece

This piece of music is based on a folk song. Have a look at various versions from around the world. “The Swedish folk song is also a game, where one child pretends to be the sleeping bear whilst the others walk in a circle gently singing the song. In the game the bear wakes up at the end and chases after the children, trying to catch one.”

Questions to ask your pupil:

• What is the title of the piece of music?
• How will this affect the way you perform the piece?
• Should you play it fast or slow?    
• Should you play mostly loud or quiet?
• The piece is about a bear sleeping and then it wakes up. Do you think the music should be loud or quiet when the bear wakes up?

Perform the piece of music to your pupil.

Once you've listened to the piece of music, explore the following questions with your pupil. 

• Does the music start loudly or quietly?
• Does the music end loudly or quietly?
• Listen as I play, can you raise your hand when the music gets louder and put it down when the music becomes quiet again?
• Does the music get faster or slower at the end?
• Can you clap the pulse as you listen to the music?

Creating an echo-singing activity

Here is the song, the arrangement is slightly longer than the song to make the most of the learning experience. Can your pupil clap the rhythm? Can they sing a phrase? Ask them to put dynamics into their performance as written and breathe between the phrases. Get them to play the melody on the piano (either using the music or by ear). Encourage your pupil to think about the words as they play to make it more expressive. Below you can see a 1-bar melody and then an empty bar where your pupil can respond. 

3. Week 3 & 4 – Reading

Random notation for sight reading activities

Ask your pupil to play these random notes, which have been taken from The Bear is Sleeping. Once your pupil has read them, ask them to write the letter names underneath.

Quick sight reading.

Here's some short sight reading examples you can use with your pupil. All of the notes that appear in these exercises are taken from The Bear is Sleeping. 

Create a Music Theory Activity Sheet 

To connect the theory to the piece, why not ask your pupils the following questions and set these activities. 

• Using the random notes above, can your pupil name all the notes? Can they name other notes in the piece and then play them.
• Ask them to write some of these notes on the stave.
• Ask them to draw and explain the following note values; a single quaver, 4 quavers beamed together, a crotchet and a minim.
• Check their understanding of mf, p, f, rit. dim al.fine
• Can they draw and explain a fermata/pause?
• Can they explain the 2/4 time signature and the F major key signature, and write out the scale?

4. Week 5 & 6 - Scales – fun with pentascales!

The first five notes of a scale can be referred to as a pentascale. 

This folk song primarily uses the F major pentascale. Although this scale isn’t assessed at the Initial Grade, it useful for your pupil to be able to play the first five notes of the scale to prepare for playing this piece. You can also introduce the pentascales of the scales that do need to be played in the Initial Grade exam, C major and D minor. 

• Accompaniments – here are teacher accompaniments you can use when your pupil plays the F major pentascale. There is also a version in D minor so that you work with your pupil in two different keys. 
• Encourage your pupil to improvise a melody that illustrates the title of the piece The Bear is Sleeping. How will this affect the way they play?

 Improvising tips for pupils

• Make sure that you play long and short notes. 
• Start and finish on an F.  
• Remember to use the Bb, not a B. 
• Make sure you include silence in your playing like breathing when singing. 
• Use notes next to each other and some of the same notes.

Here is an example of a pupil using a pentascale in a piece of music.

5. Downloads

Thank you for reading our resource on The Bear is Sleeping. 

Please find a PDF download of all the music provided as part of this resource. 

What other ideas do you have to teach The Bear is Sleeping? Share your thoughts on our padlet below. Revisit this resource at a later date to get further inspiration as more people take part in this activity.