Teaching Notes, 20090227

After two weeks off (one for being out of town, one for school winter recess), I hoped to have a good lesson plan ready. I really wanted to introduce something that would be appropriate for African-American History Month, and so I thought I'd finally use the assortment of large drums found in the music room.

Everybody Oughta Know	Sing as opener, students are seated
This is turning into an easy opener; I zipped in "music, rhythm, and drumming" as things that everyone ought to know. In both classes, children streamed in, and I started the song when the class was about 80% seated (and all children were at least in the room).
African Drums!	Introduce an instrument to pairs around the room. Then have students play while those on the larger drums provide a clear downbeat.
This consumed a fair amount of time, and was very rewarding. I introduced several different drums, including the kpanlango, djembe, talking/squeeze drum, and other instruments such as the agogo, and the guiro. I passed out about 10 instruments in all, and that required pairing children up - one child would get to play and then after some time we'd switch. First, I had the students with the large drums (kpanlango, djembe) to try to play on '1' (of 4 beats) - getting them to play consistently was pretty darn hard. Originally, I wanted the children to experiment and play improvisationally while the large drums continued to play on '1', but that more or less led to chaos in the first class. The second class, I had the large drums play on '1', and other groups/instruments play only on the other beats. I still focused on getting the large drums to play on the beat, in unison, and when it happened it was vey satisfying. I emphasized how the big drums were so important - it kept everyone together, and it was always present.
Tuwe Tuwe	Review the song while putting away the instruments. Try to do a round, with half of the class starting 4 bars after the other half.
The students picked up the song very quickly despite the 3-week layoff; I guess it was helpful that the song is pretty short, and the clapping really helped key "Tuwe". The round for the first class was messy at first, but then the teacher offered to help; that made things a litle easier, as the students had at least someone to follow. However, the students oftentimes still followed me or children on the opposite side, which made things a little difficult for the round to be successful. I told the class that I'd record the song the next time, and the teacher offered to record it on her laptop, but after a few minutes she couldn't figure out how to get the recording to work. So, I just did the round again, but this time I started the second group after 2 bars, and it sounded pretty good. The second class' round went ok - it started well (possibly because we did a round during the previous class), although we only got to do a round that started with the second group 4 bars after the first. Originally, I had hoped to also have a student or two hit the kpanlango to keep a beat, but it was simpler to just focus on the singing and round.
Cookie Jar Chant	Teach phrase by phrase, focusing on the call-response. Don't worry about beat.
I never got to this.
Fresh From the Kitchen	Review activity, and play it for about 8-10 children's worth.
Students from both classes did not at first remember the activity, but after one iteration, most remembered it well enough to go across the room. (Some thought we were playing the game from "The Longer The Faster".) While in the first class students simply walked from one side to the other, I encouraged students in the second class to do something fun while they walked from one side of the circle to the other. At the end, students from both classes complained that they didn't get a turn.
Sarasponda	Review song, introduce boonda.
I was going to try to get the class to sing this again, and then introduce the boonda/boonda, but I simply ran out of time after reviewing the song. In both cases, I had the class line up to leave and we sang the song standing. One student complained that I was hurting his diaphragm with all of the singing. I couldn't be prouder! :)

Backpocket items included My Bonnie (with bouncing on 'B' words), and Each of Us Is A Flower. The drumming really did take up a lot of time, although I didn't mind so much since it had been a while since the students played with instruments.