| 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.
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