| Over the River and Through the Wood | Use as an entrance song. Quickly review, add the 2nd verse. |
| Students remembered the song from two weeks ago very easily. However, the 2nd stanza didn't go as well as I had hoped. I couldn't tell if the students were just bored of the song or if I was rushing the instruction. I did try to include some illustrative motion for the 2nd verse, but I don't think certain parts (marching in 1/2 time for "we seem to go extremely slow") came as easily as the 1st verse did. I also had an interruption of momentum to start the class; the first class sat down while I was singing the song, and I had to stop to tell them to keep marching, and the second class sat down before any song started as I had to hold the door. I'll use this song again perhaps as an exit song during the last class before the holidays. | |
| Austrian Yodeler | Teach the song from scratch, include 3 verses. |
| One some of the students knew the song (mostly from my classes last year), and so I taught the song from scratch, using avalanche and grizzly bear as the first two items. Then, I threw in Santa for good measure, which gave the kids a nice chuckle. "How many Ho's should we say for Santa," asked one student. This was a nice exercise to get the students still moving a little bit. And, it also set me up nicely for the next exercise... | |
| Do Re Mi Fa Sol | Have students find Do from "Austrian Yodeler", and walk them up the scale |
| With the song ending in a yodel on Do, it was easy to jump (literally) back into the Do Re Mi exercise that we did two weeks ago. This time, I put out triplets of three differently colored stools at different locations in the classroom, and I had the students jump at Do, Re, Mi. I placed a different stool at Mi, and then I went up two more steps to Sol. Sol got a stool as well, and as I jumped around the notes, students sang the notes. Probably about half of the students (maybe a little less) were also trying to follow pitch upwards/downwards depending on which direction I was moving. I also took the time to introduce a jump by jumping the arpeggio (Do-Mi-Sol), although I didn't tell them what an arpeggio was. Instead, I mentioned that these notes are more important than the others, but I did not explain why. I'm hoping the alternating stools are going to also pay off when we do notes on a staff. | |
| Zemer Atik | Teach steps of dance, then apply to music |
| Yay - this was the first time I had the students engage in significant motion in the middle of the class. I spent a decent amount of time walking the students through the initial steps, although for the first class, I flubbed the introduction a little by having the students take 4 steps instead of 5 (and then a 6th). No matter, students were able to figure out the pattern. I didn't bother trying to get the students to put one hand in front and one hand in back while they marched in a circle - I figured that that would have been too difficult. The students were able to learn the motions leading into the middle of the circle very easily as well. About half of the students knew how to snap, and the others either just motioned the arms, or clapped. There were a few students who took very large steps into the middle in an effort to crash, and so I had to remind people not to overextend themselves. There were also some students who were slipping on the mats, as we had to cross them to get in/out of the middle, and so I had to caution the students about slipping as well. Zemer Atik was pretty successful. Students seemed to enjoy the song/dance greatly. I used a recording from David and the High Spirit which I downloaded off of iTunes, but it was slower than the one that was used to teach me the song. I actually prepared faster versions (about 5% faster and 10% faster) versions of the same song, but I didn't get to use them. Teaching the dance and going through the song twice (a 2:06 recording) took about 8 minutes of class time. | |
| Victor Vito | Exit Song - sing first stanza, and get the class marching to line up to leave |
| Victor Vito is a great exit song; heck, it's a great song in general. I had the 2nd class march in the wrong way (oops) while doing the mat return. I still need a good system for that for exiting the class through the back door. In both classes, I was really short on time, so I only went through 3 verses, and shortcutted to "youuuuuuu!" | |
I was really happy that I was finally able to get a motion activity into the middle of class. However, there were a ton of things that I wanted to do, including teach Tuwe Tuwe (round, sort of a lead into Kwanzaa), and I didn't even have to use any 5 fat turkey interjections for a minute or two. I also had Fish/Chips/Vinegar in my back pocket, which I was going to record and play back. I even had upon the housetop if we really needed it ready.
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