Teaching Notes, 20090206

Today was going to be another chance to get more Valentine's Day-oriented songs into the children's repertoire. February is also African American History Month, and because I was out next week (and there was a scheduled school vacation week during the following week), i wasn't going to have much of an opportunity to do much during the month in general for AAHM. So, I decided to put in at least Tuwe Tuwe and hope that the children would remember it in 3 weeks.

Down By The Sea (Red Grammer)	Have children walk into the room in a circle, and follow my hand motions while keeping beat with feet.
During the first class, children quickly streamed in. I have to find a better way to get the students in if I want them to march to music right when they pass through the doorway; perhaps I'll need them to line up outside first - something difficult to do when there's a rainout gym class right outside the door. As a result, I had the first class sit down around the mat circle and we simply did the hand signs seated. I did manage to get the second class marching, although that class also had children streaming in irregularly; I think I simply wanted to try the march. The march went ok, although few children were keeping a beat with their feet, even as much as I tried to emphasize it with my own feet.
Skinamarink	Teach by rote, then add hand symbols. Kid are seated.
While this is a cute song, it's pretty high up there in the register. My voice really had trouble maintaining the higher pitch, and certainly by the second class, my throat was hurting. This particular song was reasonably well received by both classes, especially after the hand signs were added. However, I don't know if the students would retain much of the song - especially since I wasn't planning on reviewing it any time soon.
L-O-V-E (Nat King Cole)	Review while seated using hand signs only, then have them stand and redo the song with whole body symbols.
This was a nice review, and it got the students up and moving again, which they always love. The students did a remarkable job of remembering the words to the song. I didn't extend the song at all, and so this turned out to be a very short review.
Tuwe Tuwe	Teach by rote/echo, add clapping
Although I didn't intend to do so (and in retrospect, I should have planned for the extra time, since I didn't plan enough stuff in general this day), I spent about 5-7 minutes with this song, even though it's so short. I spent a little bit of time talking about how it was from Africa (like Funga, etc.), and the fact that these weren't English words gave me free license to take this very slowly. However, the students actually picked it up pretty quickly. Adding the clapping was a lot of fun, and it kept the students' attention. The second class was doing very well, and so on a whim, I decided to try out a round, since the song was so short, and the second class teacher was participating along with the children (read: free helper/leader). The round was ok - it sounded far better than I expected, although the students may have not noticed. It would have been nice to bring a recording device for that day.
Mail Myself To You (Woody Guthrie)	Review the first two verses. Then the latter two verses, adding a review of the first two in between. Then lead the students by reciting the first line, and singing the entire song as A-B-A-C-A-D-A
The students seemed to enjoy the song and the extra verses, and the one line prompt (similar to what they do with hula) worked well. But after the 8th stanza (after doing some repetition), the students started getting tired of it.
Magic Penny	Teach by rote only the first verses and chorus, followed by the same first verses. Then, add some hand motions to the chorus.
Students seemed to be ok with the song, although their energy and enthusiasm might have been a little low after too many Mail Myself To You's. Adding the hand motions to the chorus provided a little bit of variety for the students since there isn't a lot to do but sing during the main verse.
Sarasponda	Teach by rote.
This was really a backpocket song, but I found myself having a lot of extra time. Students seemed ok learning the song but again they also appeared a little tired. Having two songs that didn't involve English may also have been a little weird for them. I also gathered that many first graders don't know what a spinning wheel was. For the second class, I had them clap to "ret set set" to emphasize its shortness, which they mostly got.

This time around, I didn't really have a good ending song, particularly for the first group, so I had them simply line up while doing sarasponda. For the second class, I had them march to Magic Penny and do their typical mat grabbing and dropoff while walking in a circle.

With sarasponda I do hope that I can extend the song such that we have a group of "boonda" kids vamping until "a do rayo". In the meantime, I thought this was a fun class, although I can tell that the children do get tired when we spend more than 5 minutes on any one song or activity, unless it involves dancing.

The other backpocket item would have been A Bushel and a Peck.