Adventures in Melodia the Musical Town

For a Music Games Day last year, I (Georgina) drew a map of a musical town called Melodia as a part of one of the games. As the students loved the idea of a musical town, I decided to build a 3D version of Melodia, using Lego for the buildings, and Iwako animal rubbers for the town's residents.

As well as being really fun for me to create, build and manage, Melodia enhances my younger students' lessons as they are transported to a musical town where they can learn about different aspects of music, both practical and theoretical. It's also a place where they can reinforce their existing knowledge in creative and unusual ways, away from the piano.

This summer, I revamped Melodia, with each of my younger students choosing an animal they would like to have named after them. As each student has their own animal, I'm able to personalize every worksheet, not only to cater for their individual abilities, but also to include their names and their animals within the activities.

I've found that this makes the children feel more involved, and therefore more motivated to work harder. It's always lovely to see students walking down the path with their parents, pointing to the window and explaining what's going on in Melodia that week! 

In between lessons, the students' animals live in their houses, but at the beginning of lessons they adventure out into Melodia as the student decides what they want their animal to be doing that week.

Each week, the students look forward to seeing what the animals will be up to on their next musical worksheet, for example going on holiday, or buying instruments in the music shop.

Wherever they go and whatever they do determines what type of musical activity they will be doing for their homework that week; the different buildings and places in Melodia all relate to different aspects of music:

'Apollo' Music Shop
Here, the students learn about instruments, the orchestra, and composers. This is normally through watching videos or listening to music that we then make notes on and discuss.

Jazz the monkey outside Apollo Music Shop

'2 Quavers' Coffee Shop
When the students' animals visit the Coffee Shop they know they will be practicing rhythms, for example by clapping and then drawing someone's 'order' - a tea (crotchet), two coffees (four quavers), and a fizzy cola (four semiquavers).

Rhythmick the Frog on top of 2 Quavers Coffee Shop

'Have a Rest' Cafe
In the Cafe, the students are given a worksheet to practice drawing musical symbols and notes, for example by decorating a cartoon cupcake with rests, treble clefs and bass clefs. 

Melody the Rabbit looking after Have A Rest Cafe 

'Arpeggio' Travel Agents
From The Travel Agents, the students are taken on a musical trip around the world. They are given musical worksheets which, when completed, reveal the next country they will be 'visiting'. When they have worked out the country, we then listen to and learn about music from different countries. Sometimes we even play instruments from different countries that we have here at Greenside. In the past these have included: steel drum, bodhran, mandolin and castanets.

Chord the Rhino looking after Arpeggio Travel Agents

The Park
Here, note recognition can be practiced in fun and interesting ways.

 

 The Playground

As this is fairly new, no worksheets have been made for the park - that will change soon!

The Castle RuinsThis is also a new addition to Melodia, and will soon be featured in a series of worksheets where the students will use all areas of their musical knowledge to uncover the mystery behind the hidden treasure.

 

 

The Pond 

The animals who live in, on and around the pond appear from time to time with different challenges and activities for the students.

Melodia is just one example of how at Greenside we like to use our own creativity to help make learning fun! By using our imaginations, we encourage our students to use their imaginations too.
We were very pleased to hear that one student has even created their own version of Melodia at home!