Teaching Notes, 20081205

It's week 3! We had skipped a week for Thanksgiving, so I had two weeks in theory to prepare for this class. But as usual, I found myself planning the night before instead of throughout the week, although I tried to remember any spur-of-the-moment ideas that I came up with over the course of the two weeks. I spent about 3 interrupted hours trying to plan this week's session.

Let's All Travel Down The Music Road	As an opener, bring the students into the room while singing the song.  Use hands to illustrate relative pitches of the song.
I almost scrapped this, but ended up doing this even though students started pouring in before I could start singing the song.  In both classes, students were mostly seated on the mats in a circle before I started the song.  After singing it for a few times, I asked what they thought my hands were doing, and the students picked up on the pitches quickly.  I would sneak in a little bit of solfege in the hand movements, but not enough to really make any emphasis on it.
Highway Number One	Play the song, make sure the students listen carefully. Walk in a circle to the song and do what the song says!
I made sure that the students remembered how to slide (something that we did during Sally), and I also talked a bit about Australia (including pointing out its location on the map in the room). A few students knew about Australia, ranging from knowing it was a country to having relatives from there. The song was a clear success, and the students (plus both teachers) really enjoyed the activity. I had the volume a bit on the low side by accident, prompting me to rush out of the circle in the middle of the song for the 2nd class to drive up the volume.
Funga Alafia	Introduce Kwanzaa (Matunda ya Kwanzaa). Teach song via rote, and then add hand movements. Explain the meaning of the hand movements.
We chatted a bit about December holidays before introducing Funga. The students enjoyed the song, especially when just saying Funga and Alafia. I didn't have a lot of Kwanzaa material practiced, and so Funga was a nice approximation for introducing Kwanzaa to a lot of the children.
Dreidel Song	Introduce the first/main verse of the song, along with the chorus. If the song is picked up quickly, then introduce the 3rd ("My dreidel's always playful...") verse.
I went to Target the morning of the class and purchased a 2-pack of wooden dreidels, which was nice, since I really didn't have any other accompaniment to this song, and I wasn't going to have the kids walk or do any sort of of motion with the song. Many of the students already knew the song, so I moved onto the 3rd verse, which wasn't originally known by any of the students.
Jingle Bells	Teach via rote. Add handheld jingling bells (7 in all) and have students keep beat with the bells. Then, teach Jingle Bells in Spanish (Cascabel).
It didn't come as a surprise that the students knew Jingle Bells, so rather than have them sing the middle verse ("Dashing"), I cut them off right at the end of the chorus of Jingle Bells, and then added the handheld bells quickly. I had to rotate the bells around the room after a few runs of the song so that most of the children got a chance to play with the bells. Cascabel I think was met with only minor success, although the students were clearly interested. I probably didn't teach the Spanish version slowly enough for it to make a lasting impact on the children, except for maybe the one student who could speak Spanish and knew Cascabel.
Rig a Jig Jig	Review the song one more time. For the 1st class only, try to do the double circles. For the 2nd class, have them clean up the mats while singing.
Success! I finally got the 2nd class to do the song with two concentric circles moving in opposite directions. In both classes, I ended up substituting the last line with "Goodbye goodbye goodbye", and it's starting to turn into a common easy way to end the class.

The first class didn't really have an exit strategy, which led to a bit of an abrupt ending ("I think we're out of time"), but it didn't seem to faze the students or teacher. I did try to sneak in "Goodbye my friends, Goodbye", but it wasn't really taught. Again, I didn't ask students what they learned; there wasn't much time for any sort of discussion. For the second class, before Rig a Jig Jig, I also taught "We wish you a Merry Christmas", but only the first half of the first verse, and then substituted the verse with "Now Bring Us Some Chocolate Pudding", followed by "We won't go until you bring some". I don't think that really stuck well with the kids. Other backpocket (unused) songs were Up On The Housetop, and the usual trio of Sarasponda, Deep and Wide, and Tony Chestnut.