The Sound of Music with Dash

A Singalong with a Musical CleverBot

What many might not know is that when a new employee starts at Wonder Workshop, she or he has to do a demo with Dash, Dot, or Cue in front of the entire Wonder Workshop team at our weekly All-Hands meeting.

One of our newest employees is April Crane, who recently started with us as a Senior Content Editor. April has a rich background having worked in media for years, but what we didn’t know was that April is also a classically-trained singer! We quickly learned of her talent when for her demo, she sang the age-old favorite, Do-Re-Mi, from The Sound of Music, accompanied by Dash and its Xylophone.

How did April accomplish this musical feat? She used the Wonder Workshop free app, Xylo, to create an original program for Dash to play the song on its attachment, the Xylophone. The instructions for calibrating the Xylophone’s mallet are quite simple.

She then programmed the song, note by note with the appropriate rests, by tapping on the Xylo interface, and added some movements for Dash. Then she practiced, practiced by added her singing talent to the mix!

Inspired? You may want to check out some of our other beginning K-2 lesson plans for Dash and the Xylophone:

• Xylo: An Introduction
• Xylo: High Notes, Low Notes

To have your own classroom rendition of Do-Re-Mi, try to find some online beginner sheet music or use “letter music” for younger students:

Remember, you can sync up to five Dash robots to one Xylo program, so consider creating a xylophone marching band with your choir of singers!

Want more cross-curricular ideas for the arts, science, social studies, math, and ELA? You can find subject-aligned lesson plans in our Code to Learn Lesson Library, found on our site’s curriculum webpage (click on the righthand side). We continually are adding new lesson plans monthly. If you’re interested in the premium lessons, you can subscribe to the Lesson Library for $60/year or a one-year subscription is included in our $99 K-5 Learn to Code Curriculum Pack(bargain!).

Check out the latest five lesson plans published last month:

• Narrative Writing: Dot Search
• Forces: Dash Pushes and Pulls
• Measurement: Endurance Obstacle Course
• Applying Research Skills: Robot Design
• Coordinate Plane Graphing: Mystery Pictures

Have other lesson ideas? Let us know at https://education.makewonder.com/curriculum/submit

Don’t forget to share with us what your students can do on Twitter (@Wonder Workshop). As Julie Andrews sung, “So, do!”