Teaching Notes, 20100201

The previous day was the Red Grammer concert, and frankly, I felt that the class still had some reasonable momentum on some Red Grammer songs, so I felt that it would be ok to continue on the RG thread. I also debated whether or not those students who attended the concert would think I was just just copying RG, but I thought that that risk would be outweighed by having some students already familiarized a bit with the songs that I was trying to present. That said, I wasn't going to do another 100% RG class.

Hello World (Red Grammer)	Entrance song, stop students after one round of the chorus, and then have students echo the first verse
The last time I opened a class with this song, I didn't really spend a whole lot of time on the first stanza, and so this time I explicitly had the students echo each line of the stanza, similar to what RG did during his show. I sang along with my guitar this time around. The first class for some strange reason was extremely low on energy, and the lethargy appeared to extend throughout most of the class. The one thing that I feel that could have changed here was to sing Hello World not on the recorded key (C), but higher. For the second class, I moved the song up to G, which had me singing pretty high, but it brought the song up in the children's ranges. I think I've trained the kids not to match octave, which is a little too bad, since it'll mean a lot more adjustment for me, but the energy difference is worth it.
Jenny Jenkins (Lisa Loeb version)	Teach the tongue twister, then iterate through some colors and students to teach the song
I had the tongue twister ("I'll buy me a foldy roldy... to find me") prewritten on the board, and I spent a minute or so teaching it spoken to the class, and then with the melody to it. I then asked some volunteers to say or sing it as fast as he/she could, which was a bit of fun. Then, I mentioned how this was a song, and I just dove into the song with a color that someone was wearing. I managed to exhaust the colors of the room after about 5-6 kids, and I even got to improvise with a few colors not found in the Lisa Loeb version of the song. For the second class, I used the teacher as a prop, but I goofed by singing the other class' teacher's name instead. Whoops. In all, this song was pretty successful, and it really engaged both classes.
Ukulele Introduction	Show uke, demo a song or two
Before I brought out the uke, I quizzed the class with a few review questions about the guitar (think physics!), and then I brought out the ukulele for everyone to see. For the second class, I carried the ukulele around the room, letting each child strum the instrument once (and only once). We then talked about the differences between the two instruments (size, strings, etc.). I then talked about how ukulele means a jumping flea in Hawaiian, and how there were a lot of Hawaiian-sounding songs like...
Somewhere Over The Rainbow (Iz version)	Dive right into the song while playing ukulele
One of my stretch goals is to have the class be able to sing Over The Rainbow, but in the style of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. I guess that's more than just a stretch, but I do have another 4 months or so left to go. Anyhow, I just went right into the song, which had some students chuckling. A few recognized the song as a tune from the Wizard of Oz. I only sang the first 8 lines (ending in "Dreams really do come true"), and that led to a quizzed look on some kids' faces; one asked the obvious question, "why doesn't that rhyme?" I gave a sort-of made up answer there; I didn't really know why it was different. One of my stretch goals is to have the class be able to sing Over The Rainbow, but in the style of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. I guess that's quite the stretch, but I do have a few months left in the year.
Oh My Goodness, Look At This Mess (Sweet Honey in the Rock)	Dive right into the chorus, have the students repeat the chorus only when I sang a stanza or two
I transitioned to this song by noting that my room was always really messy with the multitude of instruments at home. I then sang the chorus and I proceeded to teach the class by rote. I only got through two different stanzas, and the students only partially got into singing the chorus, although the students seemed intrigued by the song.. I didn't go beyond two stanzas.
L-O-V-E (Nat King Cole)	Teach song, use ASL for letters and some simple signs.
This song was pretty effective with my 1st graders last year, but similar to Tuwe Tuwe, for some reason success last year didn't translate as well for this year. Some students seemed to like it, but few sang along with it, even with the lyrics. Both classes were so disinterested that I had to remind them to sit up straight and give their bodies room for the air before trying the song again.
Wimoweh (Red Grammer)	Teach students the 1st and 3rd parts of RG's version of Wimoweh, have students sing both part simultaneously.
This was completely inspired by Red Grammer's show - get the students to sing 3 parts simultaneously while the leader sings the most recognizable part of the song. I only wanted to cover the 1st and 3rd parts since they are both pretty repetitive, whereas the 2nd part ("way up, boys") has rests interspersed and could lead to momentum loss or rhythm chaos. Getting the students to all sing part 1 ("Wimoweh") was pretty easy, and most recognized the song from the Lion King after they started singing it. For the first class, I split approximately half of the class and taught (only) them part 3, which led to some grumblings ("I want to do the other part!") from the kids. I also noticed that it was hard to get both parts singing together. For the second class, I used my ukulele, which appeared to really get the kids going, and made it remarkably easier to maintain a steady beat/meter. I then only had about a quarter of the class move onto part 3 - still got some grumbles, but I tempered them by noting to the majority of the class that the 1st part was the most important part, as it set the tone and speed for the other part(s). With the uke, I was able to get the class to sing both parts pretty well. I didn't have any additional time to do anything else, and so I sort of left them hanging, but they, especially the 2nd class, appeared very interested in extending the song at a later class.

The 2nd class this week was a lot more responsive than the first, and I can't really explain why. Last year, I consistently was able to get through more material successfully with the 2nd class, but I chalked that up to adjustments made in between classes, but this year both classes were usually pretty similar in success, until today.

I left a lot of extendable material for next week, and so I hope I'll be able to extend them during the next few classes to come. (My lesson plans are already half-done! Yay!) The next week's class is the week before both Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year, and so I hope to be able to do more material relevant to both events; that will probably include redoing Nat King Cole's L-O-V-E.