Teaching Notes, 20101215

It was the last class before winter break, and so it was really important for me to get something that was somewhat holiday related. At the same time, it was becoming apparent that the students were responding well to the instruments, so yet again, I had more instrumentation going on.

Jingle Bells	Lead class while singing
I suppose I took a minor risk thinking that most students knew the song, and so I told the students before entering the class to sing along, even if they didn't know the song. Fortunately, I didn't notice anyone who didn't know the song, and most sang with gusto that I hadn't witnessed in a while.
Drumming, rhythms	Continue working on rhythms, try to get in more instruments
This time, I had four lines of rhythms already written on the board: drum: quarters on 1st and 3rd beats blocks: 4 quarters bells: ti-ti-ta, ti-ti-ta triangle: quarter note on the 4th beat I first had the students warm up by clapping a measure of quarter notes. Each time, I counted 1-2-3-4 and then we all clapped together. I never extended past one measure until much later. Then, I had the students practice just the first line. I had quarter rests written on the board so that the students understood that there was still something in place of notes for those beats. Similar to the previous week, it took a little bit of practice to get the students to do nothing during the rests, and some resorted to the same arms-wide-apart to avoid clapping during rests. After the students were able to play the drum part correctly, I had two students placed behind chinese drums, and we all played or clapped together once, followed by the drummers playing their part while the rest of the group clapped quarters. Next, I had three students play blocks on the quarter notes, since that was actually their part. I still had the rest of the students continue to clap quarters while the block and drum players played their parts. At this point during the first class, I noticed that the drummers weren't all that loud, so I doubled up on drum players (two per drum). Next, I had the noninstrument students clap the bell part. (I had one lucky student demo it for the class.) After a few practices, I then had 4 students come up and play the bell part while the rest of the seated students clapped with them. Then, I had the other instrumentalists play their part. Finally, I had a student come up and take a triangle, but for time reasons (and since we sort of covered a similar triangle part the previous week) we didn't practice this, but I checked to make sure that the student knew what to do (e.g. play on the 4th beat). I then had the instrument players (the "band", as one teacher called them) practice a bit, repeating the measure. I then told the rest of the seated students to sing with me. I then broke into Jingle Bells, and the students sang reasonably well with the band. For the first class, after singing, I tried to do a wholesale swap of students to the instruments, but that turned into chaos. We never did get a chance to play the instruments, and so I ended up just having the class exit as we ran out of time trying to do the swap. For the second class, I had the class sing one more time while having the band again start, but this time significantly faster than before. That got the class rocking. The students had so much fun that after the instruments were put away, they wanted to sing again, so as they were lined up to exit, we all sang Jingle Bells one last time.

The second class was a whole lot of fun, and I realize that I probably should have used holiday material in earlier classes. The students really do respond well with songs they know, and so I may end up bringing in some additional common songs, which I've avoided in past years, thinking that they'd know them anyway.

Teaching Notes, 20101208

Today's class was held in the middle of a bit of a rainstorm, so I wanted to get the students into the classroom as quickly as possible.

Palo Bonito	Lead class while immersing the students in the song
I repeated the chorus twice while trying to get as many kids into the classroom as possible. I may have had to whip out one of the verses, but I don't quite remember if it was required. After all of the students were in, I tried to teach them the chorus, which turned out to be pretty easy. After teaching them the chorus, I did sing a stanza, and then had the students come in with the chorus. This was the first time that I sang anything significant in Spanish... to a class filled with native Spanish speakers. I recall a few comments from the kids on the order of "he speaks Spanish?" It was amusing, and I'm glad I survived. To help me with the song, I did have the ukulele with me this time around.
Drumming, rhythms	Continue working on rhythms, try to get in more instruments
Yet again, I wanted to have the students practice rhythms with instruments. We spent a decent amount of time reviewing last week's concepts around quarter/eighth/sixteenth notes. Then, I passed out rhythm sticks to the students while practicing some additional patterns on the board. I had two students trade in their sticks for places behind the drums, and they were assigned the first beat of each measure. I then had the rest of the group delete the first beat of each measure. I also eventually added a second measure to the pattern, allowing for some slightly greater complexities. Next, I added three triangle players, who were responsible for playing the 8th beat of the 2-measure pattern. With the little time I had left, I deleted one of the beats in the 8 measure pattern, and I had the students try to keep with the rest i the middle. It took a little while for the students to get this right, and I had to have the students gesture with open arms so that they wouldn't accidentally play on the rest.

Now, all that doesn't sound like much, but it was quite a full class, enough so that I spilled a little into the next class' time. I still had Longer/Faster ready, and some holiday songs just in case.

Teaching Notes, 20101201

I only have 3 more classes before the end of the calendar year, and so far I really haven't done a whole lot that is seasonal, and so I wanted to provide something that was related to the holiday season.

March of the Toy Soldiers (Nutcracker)	Lead class listening to music, have students move to the music
Before I led the students in, I asked the students to show me how they'd move to the music. "Show me, don't tell me" I asked. That wasn't terribly successful; many of the students recognized the music, and as we walked in, there was still a lot of chatter. A few would move a little bit, but not a whole lot. After the students were in, I then played the three patterns of the song, and then asked a student to illustrate how he or she would move to that part of the song.
Music Forms	Have students recognize the patterns to the March of the Toy Soldiers, and to Hello World
The March of the Toy Soldiers has 3 different patterns to them, and I had pre-cut the three parts (each about 13 seconds) and played each back. I then had students try to describe the parts. The first one (which starts the song) was described as "high". The second one was described initially as "lower". I then played the third pattern, which was also described as "high", which allowed me to explain to the students that oftentimes "high" and "low" aren't enough. The students then added that the first pattern was "happy" or "stepping" or "marching", the second pattern was more stern or serious, and the third pattern was fast and sounded like someone was frightened or running away. I chose one of the students who provided descriptions and named the pattern after them. Using the students' first initial, I then replayed the entire song, while asking the students what pattern they were hearing. The pattern on paper is AABAACAABAA, but for the kids' sake, it was reduced to ABACABA. That still is not usually the first form that one sees when extracting forms from a song. I then spent a little time ad-hoc reviewing Hello World, and I had the students try to deduce the pattern of the song. To my delight, there were several students who remembered both the chorus and the first stanza, and when I wanted to show how the stanza pattern showed up again, a few were able to remember the words to the second stanza too! I told the children that Hello World's ABABA is more typical of kids music.
Drumming, rhythms	Continue working on rhythms, try to get in more instruments
Similar to the previous week, I first had the students try to follow clapping 4 beats, and then we worked through the same concepts with 4 steady beats as before - 4 beats in a measure, 4 ta's, 4 quarter notes, etc. I then moved onto eighth notes, and talked about the speed between eighth notes and quarter notes. Finally, we reviewed the sixteenth notes and the mathy relationship between sixteenth notes, eighth notes, and quarter notes. This week, the large Chinese drums to be used for the school's entry in the 2011 Chinese New Year Parade had arrived, and so I had a student come up and play the 1st beat of each measure while everyone else kept beat clapping. I then had the students delete the first beat (i.e. the drummer had a 1-beat solo) while everyone else kept clapping the latter 3 beats. It actually took a bit of effort on my part to keep the drummer hitting consistently on the first beat, and I had to employ a combination of gestures + counting. I then had a second drummer come up, which, similar to last week, meant that the drummers had to pay attention to each other in order to sound like one drum. I really did want to get in the other instruments, but I never got the chance.

I had a few other things in my back pocket this week, including potentially the Longer the Faster, which the students have been asking for.

Teaching Notes, 20101124

This was the class leading up to Thanksgiving, and so I wanted to have something fun for the students, and that meant.... instruments!

Everybody Oughta Know	Lead class singing quickly
I wanted to get the students into the room as quickly as possible, so I used Everybody Oughta Know. The energy in the classes wasn't terribly high, so I had to go through the song at least 3 times before I felt I had command of their attention.
Rhythms on Board	Review simple Kodaly rhythms, up to 16th notes
Before diving into rhythms and terms, I first started clapping and stepping in a slow-ish (Andante, as someone noted) rhythm and I got most of the class to follow me. There are always some students ready to start rushing the beat, and so I had to be quite deliberate in keeping things at a regular, slowish pace. I first started talking about quarter notes/ta, and then I immediately drew 4 lines. I reviewed the usual things ("most important number in music", 4 beats = 1 measure, 1 ta = quarter note as it's one quarter of a measure) with the ta's. I also had the students practice clapping the 4 even beats and nothing more (which took some practice). Next, I moved to ti-ti's, and I drew a set of 8 of them. I then went through a similar exercise, backhandedly focusing on the math of the matter. Getting the students to clap just the 8 notes also took a little bit of practice. Each time I would give them a count of four before clapping, emphasizing that most important number. Finally, I drew out ti-ki-ti-ki's, which only a few students really remembered from several weeks ago. I then asked the students the same sort of mathy questions. Clapping this was amusing, and I had to slow down the beat in order to make it not sound like a mess. I then reduced the sixteenth notes back down to eighths, and drew a second measure of quarters. I then had the students clap the two measures in series, after answering questions about the total beats, notes, etc. We even played the two measures repeated once in succession, which the students performed easily. It was helpful to have the 2nd of the two measures straight quarter notes, as it seemed to bring the students back together, especially during the repeats. (I didn't write out the repeat notation (:||)).
Makeshift drumming	Get selected students to start drumming
There are no drums in the school's music room, but I really wanted to get some sort of rhythm instrument playing that could allow students to lead the rest of the group. And so, I took some of the plastic bins used to hold sticks and other instruments, turned it upside down, and used it as a makeshift drum. I used a glockenspiel mallet as the drum mallet, which was strong enough to produce a sound without causing any damage. I first had a student practice hitting on the downbeat on my cue. I then had the students clap 4 beats along with the drum, while the drummer played on beat 1. I then stopped cueing, to see if the drummer could maintain a steady beat. While I anticipated some speed-up from the students, the drummer's acceleration had a more dramatic effect on the rest of the class instead of the reverse. I repeated this exercise with another drumming student. Next, I had two students come up, and they tried to keep a beat together, which required suddenly an extra level of concentration between the two of them. That turned out to be pretty difficult, especially when I stopped cueing the students.
More Parts	Introduce rest, triangle
With two measures already in on the board, I erased the 3rd beat of the 1st measure, and then I had the students try to clap it. It took a little while to get the students used to playing "nothing", but they got the hang of it after a few tries. I had to keep stomping to note that the beat was still going; we just weren't playing anything while at rest. I wanted to eventually get the students playing to "The Longer the Faster" with drums and triangle, so I sort of forced upon the students an introduction of the triangle. We spent about a minute talking about the proper way to hold a triangle, and why we grip a loose handle, rather than the metal triangle itself when playing. I then took a red marker and wrote a line (ta) at the 4th beat of the 2nd measure, and when the students clapped the rhythm, I played the triangle. I was curious if any of the students remembered that the song - none did (even though they knew that they played some sort of game walking across the room), and so I had them repeat the pattern, but counting 1 through 8 (not 1-4 1-4), and at that point, they remembered! I told them that we'd play the game... next time.

It was good to have the teachers and not me choose who got to play the drums. The students clearly keyed on the fact that the better behaved students were being rewarded, and I think that certainly helped the students pay attention more. I even had one student in the first class who typically never engages the class pay attention and respond to my questions this time around.

I spent probably the entire class time using my feet to illustrate the beat. That was a lot of stomping.

I actually had a lot more prepped for the students, as I had triangles, shakers, tambourines, and little cymbals out for everyone. But, alas, I didn't get to them.

Teaching Notes, 20101117

Unfortunately, I'm writing this nearly 3 weeks after I conducted this class, so my memory is a little hazy. I know I wanted to revisit Still Gotta Get Up with the hopes that the classes would be able to perform the song one day.

Still Gotta Get Up	Lead class into the room w/ song, teach bridge
Similar to what I did in a past week, I had the class walk into the room as I was playing the song. The song is pretty loud and it kept the students chattering as we walked in. Once the class was in, I stopped the music and then asked them to listen for something constantly repeating ("still gotta get up..."). I then resumed playing the song and kept playing until a number of students seemed to recognize the ostinato. Of course, I introduced that term to them, although I doubt any of them are going to really remember that term. I started teaching the bridge, which I had prewritten on the board ("well it don't matter..."). I had the lyrics written out in different colors, with the first line in brown, the next two lines in red and blue (first half red, second half blue), followed by a line in brown. First, I tried to get the students to feel comfortable with singing the chorus slowly, all in one order. (We spent just a little bit of time also talking about the word choice of "don't" versus "doesn't".) We then spent some time rehearsing the chorus in parts - with everyone singing the first line, and the having the class split the next two. The entire class then sang the last line of the bridge together. I had to get the students familiar with the separate parts before trying to sing the song at tempo since the split lines actually overlap, and in order to illustrate this, I simply had the students follow my visual cues as to when to start singing their separate parts. We rehearsed a few times, going faster each time, until we were close to tempo. Then, we tried singing the bridge to the music, with again me cueing the class as to when to start the bridge. (I started the music about a minute into the song.) The first attempt was pretty messy. The second attempt was a lot better, and I had the class try to sing along with the rest of the song ("Still Gotta Get Up..."). The end of the song ends with an exclamatory "Get Up!", which caught the attention of some students, and so when we tried the bridge a 3rd time, I had the students shout out "Get Up!"
Agadu	Review, re-dance
Agadu was pretty successful last week, and so I wanted to do it one more time, especially since I asked the students during the previous class what language the song was in. I simply started with some hand motions in order to get the students' attention, and then I started motioning the Agadu signs that I used during the previous week. As usual, I asked a few questions in order to get a feel of what the students remembered from the previous week. I had to remind the students again about some safety rules about movement, as some students during the walking portions still had a penchant of walking too far, or worse, crashing into things or people. We practiced Agadu once, and then I asked the students about the language again. Nobody was able to determine that the song was in Hebrew. We sang the song about halfway through before I motioned the students to march out of the room.

I'm pretty sure I did something else this day, but unfortunately my notes regarding doing unplanned things are a little scant. Oh well.

This was the first time the principal watched the class, as she stopped by to get something out of the room. She seemed quite pleased.

Teaching Notes, 20101110

This week, I really wanted to get the students dancing again, which sort of meant Agadu or I would have had to find something else. I also wanted to do something different for an entry, as I felt I was reusing and overusing the same material for starter songs.

Flight of the Bumblebee (McFerrin/Ma)	Lead class quickly while listening
I led the class in (seated in stadium arrangement, which appears to be my favorite alignment), and quickly had them sit down and listen. While the song was still playing, I asked the students what they heard, and eventually in both classes someone thought they were hearing a fly or a bee. I then asked them what instruments they heard - most commented that they heard some sort of stringed instrument. I then asked them to try to pick out some other "instrument" - which of course was supposed to be the voice of Bobby McFerrin. Only after a lot of guesses did one student in only one of the classes figure it out.
Staff Exercises	Write out clefs again, review scale
We hadn't reviewed the staff and scale for a while, so I decided to do this again, even though it sort of sucks the momentum out of the class. Students seemed to remember reasonably well the notes up to La. I then introduced Ti and the upper Do. I then talked about the octave, its significance, and how there were 8 notes inclusive between the ends of the octave. I spent a little bit of time trying to get the students to match my pitch with each note sang, and I felt that I only achieved moderate success here; some students started getting bored when I kept walking around with a single pitch. There was also a lot of cacophony when I tried to have the students do the octave jump.
Agadu	Teach motions, dance to song
So, the one big thing I learned from last week was not to introduce "Agadu", at least by name; it's too risky and leads to crazy giggling. So, instead, I just had the students copy my motions. I first did the hand motions a few times in no real order, and the I did them in the order of the song. I then started doing them while counting to 4 for each measure - however, there is a rest on the 8th beat, and so I intentionally whispered "4" when we reached that note. I figured I wouldn't talk much about rests until we spent more time on rhythms (i.e. another day). When it was time to introduce the 2nd half/form of Agadu, I was going to have the students walk back and forth - but first, I had the students remember where they started. (Note to self: also make sure that no one's too close to a wall - it'll save unfortunate accidents later!) After walking forward (clap) and walking backwards (clap), I stopped the students and had them look where they ended up. Most were nowhere near their starting spot, and so I had them reset. The walking pattern I used was forward-back-forward-back-left-right, followed by two measures of just getting back to the starting spot. It was finally time to do this to music, and when the music started, I could tell that some students were amused and intrigued by the tunes, and so I had to be very deliberate in my motions in order to keep the students' attention. The song is pretty fast, and so I had to keep announcing moves when it was time to walk and clap. Agadu has a weird cut near the end of the song where the 2nd form only lasts 4 measures instead of 8, and reintroduces the 1st form with a long "aaaaagaaaaaadu", and so I had to tell the students to listen for an unexpected change. We ended up going through the song twice. Upon finishing the song the 2nd time, I asked the students if anyone knew what language it was. I really didn't expect any of them to know, and so I didn't tell them the answer, asking them to think about it for the next class.

I conquered Agadu! Yay! Ultimately, the classes do respond very well with motion, and it seemed easier to teach motion before accompaniment; when the music was going, many of the students were able to sense the beat anyway.

Teaching Notes, 20101103

The school where I teach is on a year-round schedule, and so I had a 3 week break, during which I did absolutely nothing towards planning lessons. Because I was going to teach songs in parts, I arranged the class in the stadium arrangement (4 lines facing forward).

Hello World	Lead class while singing the song, sing in parts
I led the class in, singing the chorus; it took two iterations to get a class fully into the room. I then led the class to sing the first stanza, which I had prewritten on the board. After finishing the song with another iteration of the chorus, I then split the class into left and right halves so that they answered each other for each line of the stanza. We practiced it once, and then I recorded the song sung this way (including the chorus, which I continued to lead) on my laptop. I then played the song back to the students. The one thing I noticed is that with a split the volume is much lower, and so I had to remind the students to sing loudly. As expected, the students got a thrill hearing their voices on the playback.
Seasons	Teach, the split class and sing
This song ("Hey Ho, Fall is Here...") is something I used extensively last year in my 2nd grade classes, and as I had yet to do a song about the seasons, I figured I'd use this here. I had prewritten the song on the board, with the 1st and last lines colored blue, the 2nd line colored red and green, and the 3rd line color orange. (Well, at least, those are the colors that I can remember as I type.) I first had the class sing through (taught by rote), and then I had the class split up the 2nd line. Next, I had the two back lines sing the 3rd line. This provided a minor challeange to some of the students, since some ended up singing either half on, half off, then full on, and some sang half on and full on. The students were able to get the pattern after a couple of tries. I then switched things up; the 2nd line was split in the opposite direction, and I had the front two lines sing the 3rd line. Piece of cake - yet still fun for the students.

Believe it or not, that was it. I was hoping to do Agadu, and in the first class, I managed to try to get the students to recite the word "Agadu", and I was met with a sea of giggles, especially when I said "Agadu-du-du". Silly 4th graders.

I was also hoping to review the staff and intervals, but alas there was no time. The one thing I did discover from today's lesson: a 3-week layoff translates to a rusty voice, particularly when trying to sing in the upper registers.

Teaching Notes, 20101006

The previous class wasn't so productive, and so this time I wanted to back to using things that clearly worked during previous classes - rhythm sticks! But, I still wanted to try new material.

Pay Me My Money Down	Lead class while singing the song
While playing uke, I led the class in while I sang the chorus; it only took two iterations of the chorus to get the class inside the room. I then tried teaching them the chorus to them, which I had prewritten on the board. They sang it with ease. (I need to make sure more lyrics that I actually get to are on the board.) I then took about 30 seconds to talk about what the song was about, and how while no one was really going to jail, the workers really wanted to get paid. I then had them respond back to me with the 2nd and 4th lines of the chorus as I sang the first stanza. I also pointed to the board when it was time for the class to respond, which helped, I think. I then followed up the first stanza with another iteration of the chorus. I then sang the third stanza with the same prompting for an answerback, and then another iteration of the chorus. Next, I asked the class if this was a happy or sad song. I hadn't really talked about major vs. minor, and I wasn't going to yet, but I was curious to see what the class responses were, since this was a song with hard (as in life-hard) lyrics to a major tune. There wasn't any real right or wrong answer here. I then asked the class if the song sounded happy or sad without the words, and few could disassociate the song from the words. I then made up bogus lyrics talking about ice cream and such to the tune, and that of course made the class believe it was quite a happy song. I then followed up with singing the 4th stanza, while prompting the class to respond. And of course, I ended with an iteration of the chorus. If you're wondering about the 2nd stanza, well, here's the whole song: 1. Well I thought I heard the captain say, [pay me my money down], tomorrow is our sailing day [pay me my money down] 2. Soon as the boat was clear of the bar, [pay me my money down], the captain hit me with the end of a spar, [pay me my money down] 3. I wished I was Mr. Howard's son, [pay me my money down], sit in the house and watch the work get done, [pay me my money down] 4. It's been 40 days and nights at sea, [pay me my money down], the captain worked every dime from me, [pay me my money down] I figured I'd skip the 2nd stanza and not have to explain why I was hit by a spar.
Still Gotta Get Up	Teach a little more of the song
I used the familiar "Well Enough Said" as a transition, but then I then introduced the group response, "Still gotta get up in the morning". We practiced this for a bit, and then I played the song on the boombox. While the song was playing, I passed out one rhythm stick to each of the students. (I wanted to keep their attention and make the 2nd stick a dangling carrot so that I could cover more material.) Each time the song featured "Well Enough Said", I prompted the students to do the extended response. After the song ended, I asked the students what the tempo was of the song. I also had to consequently review what "tempo" meant. I then reviewed the other 3 tempo terms that we had covered in previous classes. I then passed out a second stick while replaying Still Gotta Get Up, although I didn't let the song complete for time considerations.
Rhythm Sticks	Practice simple patterns
After a quick stick review, I had the students follow me just keeping a beat, which still takes a little longer to do than I hoped. Once I had the students all together, I then wrote four Kodaly ta's on the board to represent the even stick hits we were doing. I offered to the class that musicians like to count in four, and when we have four lines/parts/beats, we have a "measure". Each one of the beats represents a quarter of the measure, and so each of those taps is a quarter beat/note. Yay math. The first rhythm I had the class play was simply 4 quarter beats. In keeping with the theme of "4", I counted to 4 before starting, as I wanted to get them used to also counting with me. Then, I replaced the second beat with a pair of eighth notes, and I drew them connected in Kodaly fashion. We then played the rhythm together (4 beats on, 4 beats off), until it was reasonably together. Next, I changed the 4th beat also to a pair of eighth notes, and we practiced again. Next, I changed the last beat to a set of 4 sixteenth notes. I don't recall talking about sixteenths, but the though of squeezing all of the notes in one beat was an exciting thought for the students. They never really got it down cleanly, even when slowing down the rhythm, but it was a lot of fun. For the last few minutes, I had the class do rhythm echos similar to what I did a few weeks ago, where I played about a measure's worth of stuff, and the class repeated what I played. I eventually migrated the class back to the Kiakahi rhythm that I taught a few weeks ago, which some remembered. Then, I played Kiahaki while cleaning up the sticks.

If I had more time, I was going to try to introduce a triplet - that may be something that I do the next time I have the class work with sticks. Speaking of sticks, this class was far more successful than last week's class, and so I may just have to do more sticks earlier. I'll also have to find a way to sneak in other percussive instruments, as I think it would be interesting for the students than to just play with sticks all day.

I had Agadu ready just in case I needed more material. To no surprise, I didn't need it.

Teaching Notes, 20100929

I had a lot planned for this week, and I was hoping to go through as much as I could. It was also Confucious Day at the school, and so I figured I'd try to do something Chinese-related for the first time in a school with a Mandarin immersion program. Similar to last week, I had the bigger class first.

Kungshi Ni	Lead class while listening to the song. Lead into concentric circles.
So, this was quite the challenge. I wanted to lead the students into concentric circles, and so I asked the students to hold hands, but what I discovered is that to 3rd and 4th graders, holding hands is no longer socially acceptable. I even tried to do the Sanna Longden "ewww" hand wipe, but that didn't make the students feel any more comfortable. As a result, we lost a little bit of time trying to get the students to link up. When I was able to bring in the students, I walked them around the edge of a rope circle, but students seemed to have a bit of a hard time staying linked and walking outside of the circle. It got even more chaotic when I brought my section into the circle - nearly everyone close to the circle started crashing in. So, rather than have concentric circles, I had a half circle on the outside, and a blob of kids on the inside. The one thing that was interesting is that some of the students knew the song. I asked if they had encountered the song in class, and none said that they did.
Staff review	Clef review, talk about other notes
I only did this with the first class, as I realize that this really is too much of an interruption of what I wanted to cover. I sped things up by having 3 kids write on a large staff simultaneously. I quickly reviewed the notes (Do through Sol), and then I talk about how Do could be positioned anywhere on the staff. I had the class go up and down the 5-note scale. I then wrote "Sol" where G is on the treble staff, and then I had the class work down the scale - causing Do to be off the scale. I then talked about how the staff really can't contain the range of our voices, and one has to add lines as necessary in order to represent notes above and below the staff. I did the same thing going up - starting with Do on the upper E.
Kungshi Ni	Teach Dance
I was pretty happy that none of the students had danced to Kungshi Ni. I first had to get the students to pair up, which meant reforming the concentric circles. For the first class, the teacher snapped into pairup mode and quickly paired up the students. For the second class, I did the pairing up. Anyhow, at least we had circles. I had one piece of advice for the students: Never lose your partner. Of course, the dance later will involve switching partners. :) Next, I had the students practice the step-step-step-hop pattern. We practiced the pattern quickly, then did it two times in a row. Then, we did it three times in a row, and added two slow steps. Finally, I had them repeat this larger pattern. Then, I had the students turn to each other and do a bow. You know what, though - all that pretty much took the rest of the time. I wanted them to try to do a partner switch, but it ended up in total chaos.

This turned out to be one of my least productive classes, and perhaps I was just trying to do way too much, or had too high expectations for the class. The second class had so much commotion that the teacher actually ended class early, so they never really got to do much of Kungshi Ni.

I might try to reintroduce Kungshi Ni, but closer to Chinese New Year.

Teaching Notes, 20100922

This time, I laid down four of the five ropes I normally use for the life-sized staff, and I arranged what I called "staggered stadium seating", where two ropes were on either side of the room, and there was minimal overlap in the middle. There was enough space in bewteen the ropes to fit kids nicely. I wanted to bring the sticks into class again, and I wanted to make sure that all of the students could watch me in front. The seating (in 4 clear sections) also allowed me to separate out the class for the first song.

As a little twist, the my two classes switched positions, so the first class was now my biggest class. I don't really prepare anything different, so it was all good to me.

Fanfare for the Common Man	Lead class while listening to the song. Discuss instruments
I had put down pictures of instruments featured in Fanfare on the ropes - a picture of a big bass drum for one of the front ropes, a picture of a floor standing cymbal for the other front rope, pictures of a trumpet and a french horn for one back rope, and pictures of a trombone and tuba for the other back rope. As students walked into the class, they were seated at one of the ropes, and I was able to get the class seated in about 45 seconds, as the students walked in pretty quietly, save for some reactions to the pictures of the instruments. As the song progressed, I talked about each of the instruments that the students were hearing, starting with the instrument pictures at the front of the class. I also proceeded to tell students that if their instruments were played, to wave their hands. (This was effective for the drums, but not so much with the cymbal.) I went around the room and fortunately the song seemed to oblige; I was able to talk about the higher brass right when they were playing, and I last introduced the lower brass, which is last to make its entrance into the song. As the trumpets continued to play, I asked the students how many trumpets they could hear. Most said 1, and I made up the actual number (5). But, I did try to convince them that the only way you can get 5 musicians to sound like 1 is if they are all playing together like a team. Hopefully that translates to more teamwork when it was time for them to play instruments as well. I went through the song twice, as the first iteration was partially consumed by the class entrances. After the second iteration, we talked about the instruments that we heard. I also asked the class if they could predict when the drums would play, and a few people noted that the drums would play as a response to the higher horns. I wish I had had time to go to Kinkos or similar to print out larger pictures of the instruments, and perhaps mount them to oaktag. I only had home-printed 8.5"x11" pictures.
Staff review	Have students draw a clef
I suppose this is something that keeps the students in line - picking well-behaved students to draw a clef on a prewritten staff on the board. It's fun, but it does eat up a bit of precious time. Nonetheless, the students seemed interested in doing this. I capped this off by reviewing the names of the notes that we've covered (Do->Sol). Interestingly, I had written quarter-note stems on the notes instinctively, and one of the teachers asked me how I knew which direction to write the stems. That'll have to wait.
Tempo	Review terms
This was a quick one. I asked them about what the tempo of Fanfare was, and few couldn't figure it out. Most forgot about Largo, and I mentioned to them that if they can't figure it out, or they don't hear a distinct beat, it's probably super-slow.
Rhythm Sticks	Pass out sticks, get class to follow me in various patterns
I passed out sticks again this time, but since I wasn't going to do anything requiring textured sticks, I passed them out as quickly as I could, even if it meant giving two sticks that were both smooth, or two sticks of different lengths. I suppose at some point I should sort the sticks out so that students didn't think they were getting a weird pair. I sang "Everybody Oughta Know" while passing out the sticks, from a suggestion from one of the students; otherwise, I was going to play "Oh My Goodness" on the boombox. I quickly tried to get the students into "ready" position, and then had them echo me in a single hit. Getting just that together was pretty hard; many students were interested in clicking the sticks as often as I wanted, and before I did anything terribly complex, I had to ensure that I had their full attention. In the smaller class, the teacher pitched in, which was an enormous help, as he was able to illustrate the proper echo. I also reminded the students that, similar to the single-sounding group of trumpets in Fanfare, we all wanted to sound like one pair of sticks. When I felt I had the students together, I then added a second click, which again turned the class into a mess. Having the teacher in that one class pitch in resulted again very positively in recollecting the students back together. After two hits, I had the students replace the first stick hit with a ground tap. (To illustrate this, I had a chair in front of me covered with a towel.) Getting the students to do this took a little bit more time, but not as much as the transition from 1 hit to 2 hits. Due to time constraints, the first class had to end right around here. I then doubled the pattern: ground, click, ground, click. Then, I added a twist - after the 4 hits, I added a ground-click-click where the first two new hits were eighth notes instead of quarters. I hadn't talked about quarter notes (or note duration, really), and so it was a little harder to teach this, and I lost many of the students quickly. I had one student also ask if it was ok if we counted all the way through, and that helped tremendously - we ended up counting to 6 for this, and that brought back the class together. I then added two beats of rest, bringing the pattern to 8 beats. We then practiced this a few times until we were out of time. I then played "No Ka Moku Kiahaki" (Keali'i Reichel) on the boombox while they were getting ready to file out, and I asked them to listen for the pattern that they just played (which arrives at the end of each stanza). A few students were enthralled by the Hawaiian chant; when the pattern showed up a few noted that they heard it. This to me sounds like something I should do again very soon.

With the classes switched, I didn't necessarily get more time per class, but I certainly I was able to validate that the larger class is really going to be the tougher class, no matter what time the class starts. I guess that doesn't really come with any real surprise.

I totally forgot to have the kids warm up to Zingamama after listening to Fanfare. Whoops.

I thought the sticks were moderately successful, and especially for the smaller class, the students really showed interest. Maybe I need to have a whole class dedicated to sticks. It would certainly allow me to cover more, but it also means potentially losing some kids to disinterest after 5 minutes. It would, however, provide also the backdrop to introducing note duration.

My backpocket list is just like last week - huge.

Teaching Notes, 20100915

Now that the students were introduced to the staff in the previous class, I wanted to continue teaching new musical concepts, particularly tempo. I also hoped to bring the rhythm sticks back out and start talking about forms/patterns in songs. More theory, I say!

Hello World	Lead class into the room with the song, teach 2nd stanza
Similar to a previous class, I led the students in singing the chorus to Hello World. I had also prewritten the first stanza on the board, and after singing the chorus with the class, we echoed the stanza, and then finished with another run of the chorus. I then reminded the students that the stanza was really supposed to be sung together, not as an echo, so we sang through the stanza, capped off with another run of the chorus. The prewritten stanza was also written in 4 colors, with each line its own color. There are 8 lines to each stanza, so I rotated the colors through. I had the class, which was seated in a square thanks to ropes I had put down before class started, split into 4 based on the sides of the square, and I gave each group a color. I then instructed the students to sing their color and only their color when singing the stanza. It took a little bit of practice (and some students in the back row complained that they couldn't quite see the words), but eventually the classes were able to sing in parts, in a square. (I prefer to not call this a "round", since it's not really a round, even though we were singing around the room.) The first class was able to do the square a lot more quickly than the second, larger class. After a successful square, we ended again with the chorus. I had the second stanza also prewritten on the board, also in the same 4 colors in the same color order as the first stanza. I then had the class echo me as I sang the stanza, and then I had the class practice singing it in the square. We practiced twice before I then had the class put the entire song together - chorus, stanza 1, chorus, stanza 2, chorus. (One student actually asked about doing this which was a great segue.) It was in all a pretty long effort, but the students now have a full song under their belt.
Clef writing	Review the staff, write a treble clef
I had a bare clefless staff on the board, and I asked the students what it was. Unfortunately, students didn't quite remember the term "staff"; I got a variety of answers such as "note", "pitch", "do". They clearly knew it had something to do with music, but no "staff". After reintroducing the term "staff", I also told them that a staff wasn't really a staff until it was graced by one more thing - the clef symbol. I drew a treble clef a few times on the board, and told the class that drawing a treble clef well takes lots and lots of practice. I then invited a few students, one at a time to come up to the board and try writing the treble clef. Wow, that made the students behave! I could only have a few students do the drawing, and so I plan on doing this several times. Unfortunately, I forgot who went up, so making sure everyone gets the same number of turns over the course of multiple weeks is going to be a difficult.
Introducing Tempo	Discuss tempo, and find the beat in various songs
Before I jumped into discussing tempo, I had the students follow a clapping and tapping pattern. For the larger class, even this took a little bit of time. I varied the clapping and tapping just a bit to be sure that I had everyone's attention. I spent maybe a half of a minute reminding the students about the pervasiveness of a beat in any song. Next, I talked about the songs that we knew already, like Hello World, and how fast it "felt" to the students. I then talked about slow songs, and I introduced "Largo". I then played the Garden Song (Charlotte Diamond) for the students as a representation of Largo. As the song played, I clapped to the beat of the song, and I encouraged the students to do the same. I then introduced "Allegro", and played Victor Vito for the students. Again, I clapped to the beat, and the students followed. Next, I introduced "Andante", and I billed it as a medium speed; I then played "Raisins" (Barenaked Ladies), and again had the students find the beat while clapping. I know that I played a few other songs for them, but I can't recall what they were. But they all varied a little bit, and each time, I had the students clap to the beat and guess which tempo bucket the song fell into. I do recall playing "Mariposa Ole" (Dan Zanes), and a few students perked up as the song was in Spanish. I then also chose a student to walk around the square. I then clapped with the student's outer foot hit the ground, although I didn't tell the class what I was doing. Eventually students figured it out, and I then made the connection between Andante and a "walking" pace. Now, at this point, I was pretty much out of time. :( But, I did try to squeeze in Presto for the first class and I played "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" (Lesley Gore) and the first class marched/danced out the class to the song. The second class' exit involved more chaos, as I played it but then the students were already getting up to leave as I started the song. I'll have to follow up with Presto the next week.

There was a lot that I prepped for that I didn't cover. For starters, I had written out the chorus to "Time" (Sweet Honey in the Rock) on the board, but we never got to it. I also had hoped to get a little more time w/ sticks (although I think I have to budget at least 10 minutes because of handout and pickup), and I wanted to sing a bit of Still Gotta Get Up In The Morning.

My backpocket list is also pretty huge now. Items on that list that aren't review include the Cookie Jar chant (although with 32 kids, that can take a looooong time), Epo I Tai Tai E, Botendere, and Tuwe Tuwe - all world music.

Teaching Notes, 20100908

At some point, I know I want to teach recorder and other instruments. Before that can happen, the students have to be able to read music, and before that happens, they need to understand the staff. So, for this class, I laid down the life-sized staff ropes, although this time I didn't have the life-sized treble clef to go with it. (I think I left it in the music room in last year's school in Cupertino.)

Still Gotta Get Up In the Morning	Lead class into the room with the song, walk the class through the staff
In past years, I've used something slower or less energetic to lead the students through the life-sized staff. But, since we had been practicing the start of this song as an answerback ("Well, Enough Said ... About That!"), I felt it would have been fun to bring them in. I told the students to sing whenever they heard something familiar, but few did. Instead, they were walking through half-giggling, sometimes clapping to the song. However, it was abundantly clear that the students weren't getting a whole lot out of the song, especially for the 2nd class, that I stopped the song after about 2/3rds of it during the second class rather than have it go to completion. Plus, for the second class (32 students), I was horribly running out of room trying walk around the staff lines. After the music stopped, I had students inside the staff move to the sides of the staff, thus forming a square around the staff. That was a bit harder than I expected.
Zingamama	Warm up the students
Since the students weren't singing as they went in, I felt that it was appropriate to warm up the students' voices. I started with a single echo of "Zingamama", and went down the scale, and only after doing that twice did I put it all together and have them echo the scale downwards. I never had them sing it with me; we were echoing the entire time. I totally forgot to do this with the second class.
Staff Introduction	Discuss the staff properties, note placement (Do-Mi-Sol), introduce Re, Fa
This was your typical intro-to-the-staff discussion, which without a treble clef, goes pretty quickly. I then had students recall the notes that we covered in past classes (Do, Mi, Sol), and I placed students on the G, and B lines (assuming a treble staff) representing Do and Mi. I then had a student guess where Sol was, and voila, the first student asked correctly picked the D line. I then talked about how notes can be in spaces, and that allowed me to introduce both Re and Fa. With five students now on the staff, I then walked up and down the notes, having the students sing the notes. Every so often, I'd try to get the students to match my pitch, and I'd say about 70% of them were doing it. I also introduced the term "scale" to the class. I'll be sure to introduce it at other times.
Rhythm Sticks	Introduce sticks, illustrate proper holding, have class follow my sticking
Before we started out with sticks, I had to rearrange the class by adding students currently on the sides of the staff to be in the middle of the staff. In the past when I've taught rhythm sticks, I've had the class always face me, and I definitely wanted to do that this time, mostly out of fear of the chaos if students weren't watching me. However, with so many students, I could tell that those sitting in the back corners weren't as attentive as those in front. Before passing out anything, I reminded the students about some groundrules regarding the sticks (no hitting people, play only when asked, etc.). I first passed out a single stick (the ridged one), and sang "Everybody Ought Know" while passing the ridged sticks out as quickly as I could. It took two iterations of the song in order to cover the entire class. The students responded nicely to the song. We then spent a tiny bit of time talking about the ridges before passing out the second stick (again, to the same song). I then quickly returned to the front of the room with my own pair of sticks. I first taught the ready position (two sticks up and apart), which isn't really an official position, but does have the students hold the sticks in a way they cannot play them. We then talked about how to hold the stick being hit so that the stick can resonate. That took a few repetitions, and I followed up with having the students try hitting the sticks while grasping them as tight as possible. Most recognized the usefulness of having an echo area formed by the hand holding the stick being hit. I also had the students rub the sticks together - first smooth on ridged and then ridged on smooth - to illustrate the effect of the ridges. Finally, it was time for the students to follow me. I first told the students to echo me, and that I'd be playing only one hit. I repeated this until I was able to get the entire class just hitting once, and wow it took a long time. But most students weren't necessarily just going off on their own - they'd just hit, maybe once or twice too many, and then realize that I had stopped. When the students mastered echoing a single hit, I then moved to slightly more complex hits (two taps, tap in the air, tap down below, stick rub), but I didn't really have a whole lot of time to do much more. In both classes, I eventually had the students follow me to a very steady but slow beat. The final stick "exercise" was to place the sticks in rest position, where both hands held the ends of both sticks, in front of the student. I then went around collecting the sticks while singing the chorus and one stanza of "Oh My Goodness, Look At This Mess" (Sweet Honey in the Rock).

And that was it! As the students processed to form a line out, I sang "Well Enough Said" one last time. I still haven't found a good exit song, and I'm not sure if it has to do with not really completing many songs at this point.

Regarding sticks - I think it would be helpful to have one pair that wasn't blue, as all of the students' sticks were blue. The differently colored stick pair would stand out a bit and might be more visible to the students among a sea of blue. (The school uniform is blue, too.)

The backpocket items are really starting to turn into a backlog, as I'm probably averaging a little less than 25 minutes of instruction for each class. I had prewritten on the board a lot of the chorus to "Time" from Sweet Honey, but I didn't get to that at all. I also had, just in case Wimoweh, Oonie Koonie Cha, Epo I Tai Tai E, Botendere, and Tuwe Tuwe.

Teaching Notes, 20100901

It's been a month now, and I was really hoping to have covered more theory than at this point than I had before. Originally, I was going to have the students walk into class and introduce them to the life-sized musical staff (using my ropes), but with only Do and Mi, I didn't think I would have quite enough notes for the kids to make the staff satisfying (for both myself and the students). So, I used those same ropes to mark a large circle, which turned out to be pretty useful - students, upon walking in, walked around the circle, and only a few of them dabbled with the rope. The most important part was that the rope nearly eliminated crowding, and the rope placement held up long enough so that I never really had to reposition the ropes.

Anyhow, I really wanted to get in theory. Here's what happened.

Hello World	Lead class into the room with the song, teach one of the main stanzas
I brought my guitar to class, and when the first class of students, as they were walking to class, saw it, they became really excited and chatty. However, the students were perhaps too noisy for the teacher, and so the teacher had the class return back to their room, and walk again to the music room. I fully supported this, and you know what - the class was tremendously well behaved! Bravo! I indeed had the students echo me (similar to the original song recording) while I played guitar, and similar to last year, I think the guitar really also kept the students' focus. The previous week, we had sung only the chorus, and so this time, I had prewritten the first stanza ("There are bikes to ride...") on the board. I also sang the song in G instead of C, which was more suitable for the children's vocal range. The first time through the stanza, I did have the students echo the song, and then we finished it off with a standard chorus. I only went through the song once because I was going to focus on it a little later...
Guitar vs. Ukulele	Compare the two, discuss differences
The students remembered the ukulele, and now that they saw the guitar in action, it was a good time to have a discussion that compared the two instruments. The students were pretty good at describing similarities (body, resonating hole, has strings, etc.) and differences (size, 6 strings vs. 4, "shiny" strings vs. black, guitar has a strap, etc.). What was nice is that the discussion gave a great percentage of the students to say something constructive during the class, which doesn't always happen with a class of 32. Similar to last week with the uke, I had the students strum a chord, although this time I warned them that the strings were metal, which would be harsher on the fingers. Most heeded my warning, but still there were some who plucked pretty hard and were surprised by the sensation. Also similar to the previous week, I tried covering up the hole, with a little more success this time, although for my guitar, it's actually pretty difficult to cover the entire resonating hole, as it's not a perfectly flat opening due to the fingerboard creeping over the hole.
Hello World (again)	Have class echo the 1st stanza, then sing through the first stanza
After we were done discussing the guitar and its merits, I went back to Hello World, and I had the class echo the 1st stanza which was written on the board. We went through that stanza deliberately slowly, without strumming, but when we finished the stanza, we finished with the chorus at the normal tempo, while I resumed playing the guitar. During this exercise, I realized that unlike previous years, I could play the guitar pretty loudly without fear of drowning out the class, when the class knew the song (which at this point, they did, at least for the chorus). I had the class next sing through the stanza without echo, which they did admirably. I then went right into the chorus again, and the students sang that with ease. I had originally planned on doing the next stanza, but I didn't; we had worked on this song long enough for a day.
Do-Mi-Sol	Review Do, Mi, introduce Sol
Yay. I finally got a chance to introduce one more Solfege note. I used the same hop-behind-the-chair approach that I took during the 1st week, and simply added Sol as a third note. (I did hear a few people sing "Re" when I jumped to Mi.) I again reviewed the significance of Do, using the last note of Hello World, and then I brought Do down to middle C, so that I didn't have to sing so high when singing the other notes. I also noted that Do was relative to whatever one was singing, although I don't think the concept of a movable Do really stuck with the students. I spent also some time trying to get the students to follow the pitches that I was singing. I'm hoping not only to get the students familiarized with the Do-Mi and Mi-Sol intervals, but I'm hoping that some of the students are going to remember middle C as Do (note: I haven't talked about letter-named notes yet) after the year has ended. To remind the students about the relationship among the three notes, I wrote them on the board such that Do was in the lower-left, Mi was in the middle and Sol was in the upper right. I then split the class into two halves, with the right half (from my perspective) assigned to "Mi" and the left half assigned to "Sol". I then jumped back and forth between the two notes, trying to get each half to sing only their note. Someone asked, "What about Do?", which led nicely to me instructing the entire class to sing Do. We practiced this for perhaps a minute - going back and forth from one note to the other. I suppose this was a very low level introduction to singing in parts, as at one point in either class, I straddled between Mi and Sol, hoping for both sides to sing their tone. It sort of worked, but by that time, many had lost their pitch and I didn't get a clean Sol-Mi chord. We'll try this again later.
Rhythm Sticks	Introduce them, maybe play some rhythms
I didn't have a lot of time to work on the sticks, but I really wanted to try them out. I spent a little bit of time talking about the differences between the two sticks (smooth vs. ridged). I then also demonstrated how to hold the sticks, alluding to the hole/space that the ukelele and guitars have. I then started with a regular beat, and I talked briefly about the ubiquitousness of the beat in all music. I then asked students if they know of things that regularly made sounds like what I was doing with the sticks - that is tapping approximately once per second. Eventually a student in each class brought up a clock, which allowed me to start singing the next song. (It also made me wonder if a lot of students these days only know of digital clocks.)
Time (Sweet Honey in in the Rock)	Introduce the chorus via echo
I only sang through two full lines of the chorus while I led the students back into a line and out the door.

I interjected "Well Enough Said" a few times and finally, more students than not responded appropriately with "About That". I hope to start teaching the entire song to the students soon.

The students in general were better behaved than last week, and that was a relief. One class teacher felt that the students were already too disruptive as they walked to music class, and so he had his class walk back to their room, and walk back again to the music class - that really helped eliminate further distractions for that class. I still think we have a bit of a logistical issue, as the first class still only has a net of 20-25 minutes of instruction due to the class officially starting right after recess ends. I'll have to think of a way to get those minutes back.

The whiteboard in this room is pretty big, but not as big as my previous school's board. The students can definitely read lyrics well, but I do notice that I'm limited to what I can pre-write on the board since I have to write large enough for the students in the back to see.

Backpocket items were aplenty: Wimoweh, Oonie Koonie Cha (again), Epo I Tai Tai E, Botendere, and Tuwe Tuwe. I have started also to collect a list of songs that I feel would be fun for the students to learn.

Teaching Notes, 20100825

It's now week 3, and I still felt I'm trying to get through some fundamental material as far as music theory is concerned. Working with a bunch of students with little musical experience is still quite the challenge. Is there an age limit after which it is harder to teach music, similar to learning foreign languages? I certainly hope 4rd grade isn't that limit, but I have been finding it hard at times to keep the students' attention.

This week's class was also taught during a 95-degree heat wave, which probably didn't help a whole lot.

Oonie Koonie Cha	Lead class into the room with the song
Students remembered this tune all right, especially as I reviewed the chant with the students still parked outside in their line. I tried to provide a slightly more complicated rhythm with my feet, but only part of the class really caught on. Many giggled.
Down By The Sea (Red Grammer)	Teach motions, teach 1st verse and chorus
Since it was so hot, I figured that it was an easy day to introduce Down By the Sea, although for 3rd/4th graders it could have been a little too simple for them. This time (compared to previous years), I did have them echo the 1st iteration of the song, and so when I started playing the song, some started singing. (Later, I discovered that some students also knew the song before.) By the time we got to the 3rd or 4th iteration, more were able to pick up the base melody, although I had to still prompt the students to do the aggregate motions in their original order. I also emphasized to the students to try to keep the beat as Red does through the song with snapping - this actually can be a little tricky since the snapping is really on the offbeat. I thought this went reasonably well. Perhaps in a week or two, I'll cover this song again, and ask students for input. It'll have to be another hot day.
Introduction to the Ukulele	Show ukulele to the students, talk about strings, playing, sounds, space
The students had been asking about the ukulele for a while, and so I finally whipped it out. I spoke first about the makeup, and then had a students describe the strings (4, plastic, black, etc.). I then strummed it a few times, and then walked around the circle, letting each student strum it once. Some students strummed pretty hard, and those students reacted in surprise as their thumbs felt a bit of a zing. I took that as an opportunity to compare strum strength and thumb numbness. :) I also talked about the resonance chamber and the hole, and its importance. I tried covering the hole with a tissue, but that didn't seem to block the resonance as much as I had hoped, so I sort of faked the disappearance of the ring when covering up the hole. However, we still had a good discussion about the importance of space, and I had the students try singing a note while first crouched, and then stretched out. We also spent a little time investigating what happens when you put fingers on the fingerboard. That led to a small chat about size and relative pitch. I didn't get the same "that's physics!" revelation that I did with my 2nd graders from last year, but I think the students understood that big tends to mean low and small tends to mean high. I hope it'll click even more when I bring in a guitar.
Hello World (Red Grammer)	Sing chorus with the ukulele
I had the students echo my singing while playing the song on the uke. The trouble was, though, that I hadn't quite planned to sing Hello, World, and I didn't have a set of chords in mind that was in the students' ranges. As a result, I sang in C, and that translated to a pretty low register for the students. Whoops. It was a good thing that I didn't really have much more in mind with this song; I only wanted to illustrate the power of the uke.
Deconstruction of Sweet Disposition	Play song, have students move to song, discuss changes
Sweet Disposition (by the Temper Trap) is a song currently on the radio whose lyrics are pretty innocuous, and is one of those songs that starts light and builds up as the song progresses. I managed to find an instrumental version of the song, and I edited it before class to shrink the duration while preserving all of the transitions. The transitions simply came earlier, shrinking the song from nearly 4 minutes to about 2:55. Before I played the song, I did ask the students what they listened on the radio, and a bit to my surprise, a lot of students were listening to things that I didn't quite expect them to listen to until they were older. No matter, I started playing the song, and I bet at least a few recognized it. Sweet Disposition starts with a fast rhythm guitar that meanders a bit, and after playing that part for about 10 seconds, we discussed what we were hearing. Some identified the sound as some sort of guitar, and I encouraged the students to wave/flow their arms as the guitar notes were also going up and down. I started the song again, and played until the bass drum came in. Again, I stopped the song, and we talked about what we were hearing. This process of listening and playing went on for most of the song. The edited recording of mine progressed as such: 0:14 add drums 0:39 add high guitar, drums now echo 0:52 just echoing drums 1:14 high guitar, cymbals 1:24 add snare 1:44 just drums 1:52 add rhythm guitar 2:14 add high guitar 2:45 just drums In neither class did I actually get to the end of the song, but I was able to get through enough to give the students an idea of how a song was changing as it progressed. Sometimes, I managed to have the students clap to just the snare part. Later the song had a much higher guitar riff that other students mimicked. I did intend on splitting the class into two (drummers vs. guitarists), but that led to a bit of a mismosh for the first class, such that I didn't try it in the second class. Anyhow, after we stopped (due to time for both classes), it seemed like students in both classes were interested in doing something like that again.

I was so distracted with the song deconstruction exercise, that I totally blanked out with regards to an exit song. No exit song! Doh.

One thing I've noticed is that for the 2nd (larger) class, I kept finding myself inside the circle, whereas for the 1st class, there was just enough room for me to insert myself into the circle at any time. I also have to keep adjusting the 2nd class circle so that they don't crowd, although perhaps they're doing that because I'm in the middle.

I also moved one student from the 2nd class out of the circle for the first time. I hope that perhaps sticks in the minds of some of the students; that particular student didn't get to do the song deconstruction.

Next week, I must introduce Sol, and perhaps I'll introduce the staff as well.

Teaching Notes, 20100823

It's week 2, and I wanted to keep trying out new things for the students. This time, I had prepared a whole bunch, but I found it hard to get through it all, as students had more trouble with the activities than I expected. Furthermore, it appears that I might have a bit of a logistical problem with my classes; my first class starts at 10:20A, but that's when recess gets out, and students cannot beam over to class in a split second. As a result, it felt like I had only about 20 minutes for my first class, which turned out to be a bit of an equalizer as my second class again seemed to have a little more trouble keeping focus (although it was much improved since the previous class).

Everybody Oughta Know	Lead class into the room with the song, add nonrepeating 3rd line, zipper
Students remembered this song pretty well, and by the time I went in, they were singing enough to know what they were supposed to be singing. I then added the nonrepeating 3rd line, which took a little bit of practice getting used to. At this time, I was also gesturing with my body the scale up, and I asked the class why I was making that sort of motion. In only one of the classes did I try zippering in a few changes to the song, but I didn't ask the students for ideas. I thought that that would be a little too dangerous at this point.
Names on Board - rhythm/accent intro	Group first names by syllables and accent config
I prewrote all of the students' names on the board, arranging them by syllable/accent group. When it was time to do this exercise, I had the students speak the first few names of each group, and then we talked about what was similar among the names of a particular group. I then tried to see if students could notice differences between two-syllable names that had the first vs. second syllable accented. Unfortunately, that eureka took at lot longer than I had hoped, which didn't leave me a lot of time for the 3- and 4-syllable names.
Body Rhythms	Have students echo whatever rhythms I did, one measure at a time
This was meant to be a lead-in into the next item, but I also felt that it would be a good way for me to try to capture the students' attention. I'd start out with simple half-measure tap/clap combos, and then they'd respond. When I moved to full-measures, it took a little while for the students to adjust. (This really makes me believe that the students had very very very little music before this year.) I eventually moved in some stomping with the clapping and tapping.
Oonie Koonie Cha	Teach chant, then song to students, then apply rhythms to the chant
I got a lot of giggles (understandably) when teaching this, but I was finally able to get the students to repeat me, and perhaps keep some semblance of a beat (without explicitly explaining it). Of course, they were constantly repeating whatever I was saying, but at least they were listening to me and watching what rhythms I was producing. I did keep the rhythms pretty simple, and perhaps the next time I do this, I'll do something a lot more complicated. As this was the end of class (already!), I had the students eventually walk in a circle while we did the song/chant/step.

I meant to interject items with a "Well Enough Said... About That" answerback, but I forgot to do that for the first class. I'll try to do it again for both classes, as I do want to start teaching that song.

A few students asked me what the ukulele was, and I told them that we didn't have time to talk about it. I hope that translates to more focus and less chatter for the following week.

I prepared a whole lot more for this week, including introducing 'sol', playing the cookie jar game, epo i tai tai e, botendere, and yes, even talking about the ukulele. I think I'll have plenty for next week as a result.

Teaching Notes, 20100811

We're back! This year is going to be particularly exciting, as I am finally, after two years, teaching in a school where my son is attending - namely, College Park in San Mateo. This not only means a new school for me, but CP had previously been without a consistent music program whatsoever, relying on parent volunteers to come in (and usually just for 4th/5th), an anonymous donor donating funds for 6 classes a year for the lower grades, and some instrumental music for 5th grade. The Music for Minors presence now provides significantly more music coverage for the students.

As I was the one who brought CP and MfM together, I landed the job of being the docent coordinator for the school - nothing terribly huge since I have only one other docent working with me at the start of the year, allowing for the two of us to cover 5 classes, or approximately 120 students. (Yep - the ratios are higher here than at Montclaire.) Because there is some music exposure at 5th grade for all students at CP, I felt that it would be better to start MfM classes for the older grades first, so that students going from K through 5 wouldn't have a hole in music coverage. The anonymous donor's classes affects K and 1st grade, and with MfM classes covering 3rd through 5th, we now have only the 2nd graders with no music coverage. My hope is perhaps to bring in some of the roving docents and give the 2nd graders some classes.

This year also, incidentally starts far earlier, as CP is a year-round school. I *almost* taught a class the previous week, which would have been the 6th day of the school year, but that was going to be a little too much of a scramble for me. However, this is also the first time I've started basically during the 3rd week of schooling, and that should lead to a few more classes, which I feel is pretty important given that my students (3rd and 4th graders) haven't had any significant music at all at CP.

My classes this year involve one 3rd grade class of 27 students, and one 3rd-4th grade mixed class of 31 students. (31!) Again, none have had significant music at CP, so I figured I'd start with some material from my 2nd grade classes, and that should be good for at least the 1st day. I have only 5 minutes in between classes, and there is going to be a class from the other docent 5 minutes after my second class, so I'm going to have to be very cognizant of the time.

For both classes, I had the students follow me into the classroom. I then had the students form a circle, and in order to provide a little bit of space, I had the students take one step backwards while facing the center of the circle.

With 27 students, there's enough room for me to be in the outside of the circle and still have all of the students follow me pretty well. With 31, I found myself spending more of my time in the middle and constantly turning around. I don't know if that in itself led to more chaos and more students being pulled out in the middle of the class, but it was certainly more difficult to manage. The next class, I may just try to spend the majority of my time at the outside of the circle.

Everybody Oughta Know	Immerse, teach by repetition
This song always worked well in my previous classes as a short intro song (although arguably I may have overused it last year), but I figured that it would be ok for this group, and it was. Students were able to repeat each line that I sang, although some had a look as if they were wondering why they were doing it. The song isn't supposed to have the 3rd line repeated, but I had the students do it anyway. In the future I hope to zipper in some suggestions from the classes into the song.
Hello in Many Languages	Sing "hello" in sol-mi, have students repeat
This was undoubtedly a secret way to get the students used to the sol-mi interval, without telling them what it was. I think I had hello in about 10 different languages. During the exercise, though, I found that I could have really used a map of the world, especially when I tried to describe where countries like Nepal and continents like Africa lived. If I do find a map, I may label it with different songs pointing to different parts of the world, something that was done in the music room at Montclaire.
Clapping Names	Have each student say their name, and have the class clap it
I did this with my students both years at Montclaire, and it's a great way to break the ice, while getting them familiarized with some (very simple) rhythms used in our names. I'll extend this a bit for the next week.
What Do You Hear?	Ask students about sounds they hear, then have them experiment w/ high and low sounds
This is something I thought would be a little too simplistic for 3rd and 4th graders, but they were happy to oblige and provide reasonable (usually) examples of sounds. Eventually, I had the class settle on a bird and caltrain as the sounds, and I had the students put their hands on their noses or their throats (gently!) in order to hear the high note or low note vibrations. This exercise leads naturally into the next song...
I Can Sign Up High	Teach song by rote, then have them act out the song slowly. Repeat, varying tempo and volume.
This song was one that works well for the lower grades, and at first I wasn't quite sure whether or not the 4th graders would find it too simple. But, the song was a good opportunity to get the kids moving again. Also, with the lower grades, I might not have varied the volume or tempo and have the opportunity to discuss both on the first day. But, the students were able to understand the concept of volume or tempo reasonably well, particularly when I sped up the song. I also introduced the classes to the term "pitch", although I don't think that really stuck in their minds when we were varying the pitch during the song. The song also provided a good opportunity to keep the song focused; I wouldn't start the song until people were silent (which, for the larger class, sometimes took a little bit of time).
Do, Mi	Introduce the two notes, and hopefully get them used to the interval
Similar to what I did at Montclaire, I took two chairs and had one represent Do while the other represented Mi. (BTW, this is a variation of the Bobby McFerrin presentation about pentatonic scales that you can find on youtube.) I would stand in front of the Do chair and sing 'Do'. At that point, I described the importance of Do, and how it ended every song. I then took the opportunity to sing Everybody Oughta Know just to get to the last note (fortunately, it's a short song), and that provided the students a little more context. I also changed the pitch a bit, and hinted that Do can move around depending on the song and the person. I then had the students sing "Mi" when I stood in front of the chair. I then went back to Do, and I had the students sing accordingly. This exercised required that I make sure that everyone was on the same note, and I had to take the time to let everyone's voice match mine at each note. I hope to get the students used to singing a regular Do at middle-C; I don't know how successful I'm going to be at that, and that's going to take several weeks of this.
The Longer The Faster	Teach students game, play it
This is always a winner. :) Seriously, I've never had a dull moment with this exercise, and I figured why not use it again. I spent a little bit of time explaining the song, and because of time constraints, I didn't demo it as long as I normally would have with individual students and counting. When we started, students kept up with the tempo reasonably well, and they were counting pretty loudly. However, as the song progressed, it seems like the class missed a beat here and there, and the 8th count was no longer where it should have been. For the first class, I didn't stop the class, and I just let the class count at their own pace (they sped up as the song sped up too). For the second class, I did try to keep the beat with my voice and hands, and when a student failed to reach the next student at 8, I held up the next marcher until the next set of 8 beats commenced. In both classes, the counting got pretty loud, making the song a little hard to hear. I did spend about a minute talking with the class about what they heard as far as the song was concerned, and enough students to my satisfaction noted that the song was accelerating. None noted the triangle hit at 8, which is something I'll have to point out at a later date.
Well Enough Said... About That!	Teach students that single phrase
I'm a big fan of Sweet Honey in the Rock songs, and one song, "Still Gotta Get Up In the Morning", has this one line "Well Enough Said, About That" several times in the song. At some point in the year, I want to teach the students how to sing the whole song (and perhaps with instruments), but I figured I'd start with the one line, which can also serve as a call-and-answer breaker to refocus the class. I first taught the phrase, and then I had them answer with "About That" whenever I sang "Well Enough Said". After 2 or 3 tries, the students got it, and they were silent while waiting for me to sing it! Yay for song snippets that can help manage a classroom.

Well, that was a lot of fun. I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to cover with older kids, so I had also prepared to do "Oonie Koonie Cha", "Epo I Tai Tai E", and even "El Juego Chirimbolo" just in case - all potential dance/movement items.

The older kids definitely pose a different challenge versus the younger students. The older ones definitely pick up and understand more, and more quickly, but *only* if you can keep their attention. With class sizes of 27 and 31, that is certainly a big challenge, and after one week, I don't think I have a good grasp yet at the secret balance between activity and discussion for children this old.

The one thing that is helping me so far is, ironically, knowing that the students haven't had any real music instruction at the school before. That allows me to replay a lot of material from my class from last year, and take it at any pace that seems reasonable.

Teaching Notes, 20100607

As you might have noticed, these are notes for 20100607, although I'm writing them in August.  That's because 20100607 was a repeat of the same class on 20100526, except it was the last class for my later class.  I had the same lesson plan, and it had just about the same success, although this second class was a little rowdier, as they had been all year.  Of course, it has been several months, so I don't really recall all of the details.  I do recall that Sing A Song was pretty successful, although the recording wasn't so useful since some of the students sang right into the microphone at full blast.

With that, however, I will no longer be teaching at Montclaire, as it appear that I will be bringing Music for Minors over to College Park in San Mateo next year, where my son will start Kindergarten.  I have always wanted to make sure that my own kids get music as elementary school children, and thus I'll be teaching at CP instead.

As for lessons learned through the year, the one thing that I did learn was to not schedule my classes the first thing on a Monday morning.  That pretty much mortgaged my workweek right off the bat.  Plus, it seemed like events (usually health-related) over the weekend led to an immediate scramble to cancel classes; cancellations seemed to be easier to manage the previous year when I was teaching on a Friday.

Teaching Notes, 20100526

It had been a good 3 solid weeks since my last class, no thanks to a combination of my illnesses and my children's illnesses. You'd think that people are healthier in the spring when it's warm. No such luck existed for me.

I arranged for a make-up class, since the next Monday was Memorial Day and the following (last of the year) Monday was consumed for one of my classes for an assembly. The class was just a little earlier than the usual time that I had for classes.

This time, I wanted to get the classes to use the xylophones/metallophones that have been sitting idle at the back of the classroom all year. I also wanted to try to get the students used to writing notes on a staff, although just for pitch, not for rhythm.

Everybody Loves Saturday Night	Lead class into the song, teach it, including alternative lyrics
I first had the students practice the song outside the room before I led them in, and that seemed to help jumpstart the song. As the students went into the room, I kept singing the song until all students were seated. I then stopped to talk very briefly about the history/purpose of the song. I then sang with a few alternate lyrics ("pizza and pie", "ketchup and fries", "learning to fly"). Interestingly, the first class objected to the food combos (even the ketchup and fries!), and so I settled on flying. What was also notable this time was that the first class, during this unusual day, was not right after recess, but early in the morning, and the students still came in with low energy. I'm not exactly sure why now that they have always been lethargic - it wasn't from being worn out from recess.
Staff Exercises	Write notes to Saturday Night on a staff
Similar to past weeks, I had a student try to draw a treble clef on a naked staff, and then I wrote a starting note for "Everybody". (At first I used middle C, but I felt that that might be a little too confusing, especially with three weeks of layoff, so eventually I moved the start pitch to the C above middle C.) I then had students come up and try to place the pitches of the remainder of the first line of the song on the staff. The results were somewhat mixed. Most of the notes took multiple tries, and I also pointed out how Saturday had itself different tones in it. It took a while in both classes, but eventually the students were able to complete the line. At some point, I asked the students what the term was for several steps, down or up, in succession, and only a few remembered the term "scale". I then had the students clap and tap the ostinato part of the song (although I didn't tell them what it was for).
Xylophones!	Have students take turns playing two notes on a xylophone while accompanying the rest of the singing class
I prepped two xylophones with two C's and two G's, and two metallophones each with a C-G pair. It didn't matter if the C was lower than the G. I then had students 6 at a time stand behind the instruments. We talked a little bit about them (what they were made of, why the resonating chamber, how to play) before playing the instruments. Then, I had the students practice hitting the C note on command (when my right hand falls under shoulder height), and after a few practice hits, I had them try hitting the G on command (left hand passes shoulder height). I then had the students practice alternating C and G's. Originally I was going to have them play the ostinato, but that turned out to be asking for mud. I rotated through the classes in groups of 6, which seemed to work out well. The students were able to coordinate playing together pretty well, and only a few groups had problems speeding up. The challenge was more getting the rest of the class to sing loudly, and to get the ostinato playing at a speed fast enough to sing to. I think one thing that I should have had the instrumentalists do was to repeat each note (e.g. C,C,G,G,) rather than alternate; I think that would have provided a better base to sing to.
Epo I Tai Tai E	Immerse song while students are ready to leave
I actually went over time with the whole exercise with Saturday Night, but I wanted to get at least one other song in. So, I had the students line up as if they were ready to leave, and then I sang the Epo song with the motions to them once through. Some students tried to sing along right from the start which was good to see. I then asked them if they noticed a pattern. (Few raised their hands.) I then sang the song once more and asked again if they saw a pattern. A few more raised their hands this time, and then I told them that we'd reveal it next week. Yay cliffhangers.

I'm glad that I finally managed to get the xylophones into the class, even though it took all year to do it. And, to my pleasant surprise the students were able to play them well and without the usual rowdiness that they've displayed in classes past. I'm going to try to fit them in one more time in the last classes to come.

Backpocket items included Botendere, the Irish Jig, and Don't Want To. I do want to try Botendere one more time before the year ends.

Teaching Notes, 20100503

Well, it was time for another dance-oriented lesson, as I was still having lingering cold/allergy issues that left me with a bit of a cough. I figured I'd just dive into my Sanna Longden collection yet again.

El Juego Chirimbolo	Lead class into the song, introduce the song to the students
I had arranged the mats into 6 rows of 3 mats each, and I had paired rows up so that I actually had 6 mats sort of together. The idea was that eventually I'd have students paired up, but that would be for later exercises. When the students were ready to come into the class, I had hoped to sing while pointing students to spaces, but it became clear early in both classes, that the students weren't used to being shown quickly individual mats. (Conversely, I think the students are well trained now coming in and seating themselves in a horseshoe.) After the students were seated, I sang the song a few times, and then put in foot, hand, and elbow motions. I then had the students stand up and do the motions with me. For simplicity, I always started with the right side (right foot, right hand, etc.) (This was one of the times when I had to be explicit about using the opposite foot so that students would mirror me.) I asked the students if they knew what language the song was in, some knew that it was in Spanish. I then taught the students a few of the new Spanish words found in the song - pie, mano, codo, juego, bonito, otro. Then, I sang the song once through while ending on the descent while turning myself around.
Staff Exercises	Have students try to build the scale featuring the last 5 notes
Again, I had a prewritten staff on the board, and again I asked students to come up and draw the clef. Both classes featured a student who was able to draw a reasonable clef at the first chance. I then sang the last 5 notes, asked them what the last note was called ("Do"), and then wrote a middle C on the staff. I then asked students to come up and draw some of the notes leading to the end of the song. Interestingly, the first student in each class drew the E above middle C instead of B. Eventually, I students were able to draw all of the remaining notes. I then asked the students if they remembered what the name of the step-wise descent was called, and none unfortunately remembered the term "scale".
Botendere	Review song and motions, then add in the complex claps
It was time, I felt, to try to get the students to do the clapping around the knee during the 3rd and 4th lines of Botendere. I had to literally walk them through the steps, and we did the clapping line a few different times. Then, I noticed that some students were trying to jump instead of step, which was a nice segue into the "game", where the students were supposed to jump in place, and try to limit movement as much as possible. I probably spent a good 5 minutes trying to do the clapping line alone before doing the whole song twice through. I think the students had a good time with this, even though some noted that it felt like gym class.
El Juego Chirimbolo #2	Reteach, dance!
Yup - I decided to go right back to Chirimbolo, and get the students doing the real juego in pairs. The mats served as a good starting point for the students, and I then walked them through the walking motions, followed by the foot/hand/elbow movement. We did this a few times going towards and away the front of the room. Then, I introduced to the students the ending twirl (a few students knew it was called the "dishwasher"), and I even used the teacher in the first class to demonstrate the twirl. Not all students got it at first, and it helped to illustrate how the twirl started with lifting arms and walking "under" them. After a few practices of the twirl, we then put the whole song together (twice through, then ending with the twirl and descending scale), and the students really had a good time with this. Even my second class, which typically is quite the challenge to keep sane/focused during dances, was able to get this down with reasonable success.

Now, that was really a fun class, even though we covered really only two songs. Originally, I had planned on teaching Epo I Tai Tai E (another Sanna Longden activity), as we had just passed May Day, but perhaps I'll use it next week. I think having the students in pairs also worked out pretty well, so long as there are pair activities for them (like Epo). Also in the back pocket was the Irish Jig (again!), and Iz's Wonderful World.