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.