TEACHER NOTES

Alanna and the Tree is designed for use with children aged 7-12. It was written by Fergus Early.

For information on performances or the full Alanna education pack, including a CD and all the songs, contact Green Candle direct.

Planning a multimedia production would also be a good way of initiating cross-curricular work between co-ordinators or heads of departments in music, art, science, ICT and RE. Even if you cannot finalise a production, it can be very stimulating to go through the process of deciding what could be done on a topic (e.g. on a CD-ROM providing illustrated material covering several subject areas by and for children of different abilities). This has the added advantage of helping several of you at once fulfil your ICT training requirements!

At a simple class level, this would be a good subject for producing material differentiated by ability. For example, a lesson and homework or series of them, might include, in order:-

a group telling of the Alanna story and introduction to the songs

a research session for facts and pictures about the subject

small group work to decide content of resource to be produced. Each group should include pupils with differing skills and abilities
- exploring ways in which the material can be presented effectively
- enabling each person to identify how they can contribute something which they are good at e.g. music, art, writing, ICT, in however simple a way. Perhaps they could compose a song or rainforest sounds.

work to finalise content

production of display and/or material.

 Alanna and the tree
         
             The story
             The songs
             More about the music
             Teacher notes
             Return to MusicEd projects