Do you ever find it difficult to connect with some Units of Inquiry?  For example, Year 1's UOI How the world works with the central idea All living things have a life cycle had me stumped for ideas. I couldn't make an authentic connection right away (I'm still thinking and researching and would love ideas if you have any!). So I was at a jobs-a-like session with PYP music teachers from various schools around Singapore and we all started sharing how we plan units that are "stand alone" or not connected to the classroom's UOI. I went away from the meeting full of new ideas and developed this parallel planner with the purpose of showing how single-subjects can still plan along side of a classroom UOI by connecting with the learner profile, attitudes, concepts and transdisciplinary themes. Attached is an example of the Year 1 Unit.

Jennifer Pittaway is our Music teacher.  Her creative mind is always bubbling with ideas of how to bring Music in to our Units of Inquiry.  Today she shares a wonderfully simple and strikingly colorful way for children to respond to Music through Art where each individual piece contributes to a whole class art piece.  Enjoy!

The Year 1 Unit of Inquiry Many different feelings and ideas can be expressed through the Visual Arts provided many opportunities for authentic integration with music. This is one of the activities we did during this unit.

Kandinsky pretty much invented abstract art back in the early 1900’s and could see colors and images while listening to music. He equated the sounds of the orchestra’s instruments with colors in the artist’s palette.

Students re-created Kandinsky's Circles while listening to classical music. Each circle is unique to what the student heard. We combined all the paintings to make two big paintings.