Teaching Notes, 3rd grade, 20110922 (2nd class)

Since my two 3rd grade classes are now staggered by a week of instruction, I'll start blogging for each of the classes separately, until at least I have the same lesson plan for both classes.

This would be week 3 for my 2nd class of 3rd graders, and I thought it would be time to introduce rhythm sticks to the class. In fact, I ended up introducing a lot more than just sticks this week.

Hello My Friends Hello	Lead students into the room in song, introduce Jambo
Leading the students in was pretty easy, and it seems to get easier each week (yay!). I had the students again in a 3/4 circle, which I think I'll continue to do until it doesn't work for me any longer. I had the words in both English and French on the board, and after having the students sing both versions, I then wrote "Jambo" underneath "Bonjour". I had the students guess (quickly) what Jambo meant, and then I asked them what language it came from. A student quickly answered that it was from Africa, which was good enough for me to introduce Swahili as a language. Underneath "mes amis", I wrote "watoto", which really means children in Swahili. But, that little difference didn't matter much. We sang "Jambo Watoto" twice with ease.
Ukulele Introduction	Introduce the ukulele
I wanted to use the uke as an accompanying instrument for the next song, and so I had to spend some time introducing the instrument. I spent time talking about the origins of the name, and how it had 4 plastic/nylon strings. One student, who knew that the ukulele had its origins in Hawaii, noted that he was part Tongan.
Jambo (Red Grammer)	Immerse students in this all-echo song
Jambo was a song that I discovered only very recently after downloading the Cellabration! album, which has a few notable gems (such as this one). The song is 100% echo, and it's pretty easy to sing. It does go better with some sort of instrumental accompaniment, which is why I wanted to introduce the ukulele. The students sang the song with me well, although near the end of the song, I think they were getting a little bit bored. I taught the ending, where one sings "Jambo Sanna" in unison three times in a row before ending with "Jambo".
Rhythm Sticks	Teach how to play properly, stick to a song
I passed out the sticks while singing Everybody Oughta Know. Singing slowly, and with some help from the teacher, I was able to pass out all of the sticks in just a little more than one iteration of the song. I was pleased that many of the students remembered the song and how to sing it. I first tried to teach basic things - show a ready (and silent) position, and how to hold the stick being hit while allowing some resonance. Doing just those two things took a lot longer than I expected. When it was clear I wasn't going to be able to get 100% of the students' attention, I simply started moving my sticks in a particular motion, in order to hope that I could keep the students focused. It worked partially. I had to spend several minutes to get the students to echo a single hit, but I realized (and I should have remembered this from years past) that it's actually easier to echo two hits in beat rather than a single hit since two hits/beats are required to determine tempo. When I felt that I had reached a critical mass of expertise and attention, I had the students follow me with sticking and rhythms while listening to Raisins by the Barenaked Ladies. This song happened to be the very first song I had students stick to, back when I taught first grade during my first year as a MfM docent. I didn't quite use the same patterns from 3 years ago, but I think the students got a little bit of experience and fun with it. I was hoping that the students would be able to follow me better than they did; I think they were over-enamored with the prospect of (1) playing some sort of sound-making device, and (2) playing something that resembled drumming.
I Think You're Wonderful	Immerse the students into the song
I actually had very little time left when I got to this, and I really just wanted to understand how well the students could sing this song. The song is a regular song sung during Wednesday assemblies, and so I was hoping that most of the students knew it. It turned out that most knew some of the words, but the class hardly sang it in tune. I wasn't quite sure if the class simply didn't know the tune, or if they were disenchanted after being asked to sing a song that they probably are tired of. After we all sang the chorus (I didn't expect them to know the stanzas), I then mentioned to the students that I was hoping that they'd be able to lead the entire school during Wednesday's assemblies while singing the song. I think they, with practice could do it. Anyhow, I wasn't going to teach them how to sing it properly during this day.

I ended the class by singing "Goodbye, my friends, goodbye", without much introduction, and some of the students picked it up, as it has the same song as their intro song. Yay.

The second class has so far been the strongest, although today was perhaps the least effective class that I've had with this batch of students. It was indeed a hot day, and as music class marked the end of the day, I think there was a little bit of fatigue. But, during the exit, it was clear that they still had fun, enough so that they were looking forward to next week.

Teaching Notes, 3rd Grade, 20110922 (1st class)

Last week, my 1st class didn't show up, and so that class was effectively a week behind. I knew what I did that week for the other class worked well, and so I kept to almost exactly the same lesson plan, and that sure cut down the required preparation time.

What surprised me, however, was that again, there was another substitute teacher for the class. You know it's going to be a challenge when the teacher opens the door and asks "are you ready for this?"

Hello My Friends Hello	Lead students into the room in song
Again, I wasn't able to lead the students in, and I made the mistake of leaving the nametags near the front of the room, where some of the kids swarmed. So, I had the students find their own way around the outside of the circle, which meant that children clumped around their familiar friends, leading to a lot more chatter. I started singing the song, and I quickly realized that the students were only going to echo me. And so, we spent more time reviewing the rather short song. ust like last week, I had pre-written "Hello, my friends" on the board, and then I wrote "Bonjour" underneath it. After teaching students how to say it, and asking them to guess what language it was, I then wrote "mes amis" next to "Bonjour" and ask the students to guess what it meant (which they did quickly). We then sang "Bonjour, mes amis" twice. Just like last week with the 2nd class, I noted to the students that they knew 3 or 4 different languages now, if you threw in Mandarin and Spanish.
Rhythm Names	Repeat students' names with body percussion, and repeat
This was the same exercise I did with the second class during the first week, where we adding body movements matching the rhythm of each name. We'd string up to 4 names together. This didn't work as well as it did for the second class two weeks ago; students weren't as interested, and I couldn't get a strong majority of the class to follow at any one time. Even at the end when I sped up the pattern, there still weren't a lot of students following. Plus, there were far more distractions this time versus two weeks ago, and that slowed the exercise so much that I burned nearly 20 minutes trying to get through the entire class (approximately 22 students). Last week, I very quickly taught "Well Enough Said", and I don't think many of the students remembered. I sang the phrase, and hardly anyone responded. So, I spent a minute or two reteaching the response, and I practiced the response a few times during the rest of the class.
Everybody Oughta Know	Teach song, zipper away
I taught the song and was, with some effort, was able to get the students to echo only the 1st, 2nd and 4th lines. The students showed increased interest in the song after I asked about the students' days and an example of something good that happened to them. I was amused that one student offered music class as something good that happened that day. Anyhow, I think at least got the song to a point where I could use it later in the year.

So, this class was probably a little more successful, only in the sense that I was able to teach Everybody reasonably well. But, another week without the regular teacher is really making this quite a challenge. The day was also quite warm, and as the students were coming right out of lunchtime, I think they were definitely tired. Even when I tried "Well Enough Said", I received little response.  I had to send another student to the office (the same student from the previous week), and that was a disappointment.

I have some catch-up to do in order to get this class in line with the other classes. After September, after I stop teaching Kindergarten classes, I'll likely expand this class to 45 minutes in order to get more material in. Next week, I'll introduce Do-Re-Mi, and Longer the Faster, two things that went well with the second class.

The one thing that did work very well was to bring a box for students to leave their lunch items.  I left the box at the front of the room, and the items provided no additional distractions.

Teaching Notes, Kindergarten, 20110915

For the next three weeks, I get to do something rather special - I get to teach Kindergarten music classes! While we have music classes for all classrooms this year, one of the Kindergarten docents (and both 1st grade docents) are new this year, and the docent won't be eligible until after the fall break. The other two K classrooms started music on September 8th, so I wanted to start up the 3rd K class so that it didn't get too far behind.

Now, this would ultimately be the first time I ever taught Kindergarten. Furthermore, each subsequent year except for this year involved older and older kids, and so it's been a while since I taught anyone under 7 years of age. I had to dig deep into the MfM songpack and notes to get ideas. I also referred back to my 1st grade classes from three years ago for additional ideas.

Come and Follow Me	Lead students into the room in song, do silly motions at the end of each phrase
I had the class walk with me in a circle using the ropes as a guide. I think with Kinders, it was a real challenge to keep the students truly following what I was doing while I was singing, especially since part of the class still wasn't in the room while I was singing. The kinders reallly do try to keep in line better than the older children, which helped things, but they're also decidedly a little slower. After I had the students all inside, I introduced myself, and clapped by name. This led to...
Name clapping	Have students introduce themselves, and we all respond with clapping and repeating the name
I've done some variant of this with nearly every class of mine, and it typically works quite well. This time was no exception, and we were able to go around the circle in only about 5 minutes.
"Did everyone bring your instrument?"	Ask question, discuss the voice
This is a nice icebreaker that allows the students to really say anything, especially when they do think they brought their instrument (and then they start talking about instruments that they have at home). No student ever thinks of their voice as an instrument; hence, this exercise is rich in potential discussion, especially around the dynamic range of the voice. I had the students do whoops up and down with their voice. Then, I asked them about sounds that they heard outside, which led me to…
I Can Sing Up High	Talk more about sounds, teach song
We first talked about the sounds that were heard outside. I really didn't get anything that was terribly useful or easy to repeat using voices, and so I steered the conversation a bit, to birds chirping and then to a train motoring (not the train whistle!). Eventually after we established that small things make high sounds and big things make lower sounds, I had them stand up to learn the song/movement. The students were able to follow me, but the singing wasn't very strong. I suppose that's understandable; they're just Kindergarteners.
Show Me	Teach song
I have never used this in the classroom, and I realize that, as simple this song is, it works great as a method to recapture the students' collective attention. I also used this song to get the students to sit down (after singing "show me the floor"). Later in the class, I used this song again when the students were getting too rowdy.
Bee Bee Bumblebee	Have students chant with me after talking about sounds again
With the students back in their seats, I had them talk more about sounds that they heard, particularly animals (and pets). I eventually suggested the sounds of bees, which artificially allowed me to segue into the Bee chant. During the chant, I simply kept the beat by tapping my knees, which the students did. I only repeated this 3 times, and during the 3rd time, I got up as the students chanted, and moved a toy bee in front of one child after the other. At the end of the chant, that student closest to the bee was "out", although we didn't really get into what that meant.
Highway Number One	Teach motions in the song, then move to the song
I was slightly short on time, and so I didn't get to practice all of the moves, but I did spend time laying out groundrules for "driving". I had the students walk in a circle rather than allow them to drive randomly. The students actually did quite well with this activity, including stopping and listening to what they had to do next at each stop in the song.
Goodbye by Friends Goodbye	Sing while the students exited
This was a pretty easy song to sing as an exit song, and some students started singing it after the 2nd iteration. I didn't plan on teaching this formally to them; I may do that next week.

In case there's ever any doubt, it is indeed far easier to teach Kindergarten students vs. 3rd graders (or older). The students don't fidget as much, they don't complain, and they'll do anything you're doing. They're also very forgiving in case you make a mistake. The students though do not learn as much, and they typically aren't as interested in talking; they just want to "do" (including sing), and so I tried to minimize chatter from me.

For this lesson plan, I had them alternate sitting and standing for each major activity. That also seemed to work quite well to break up any monotony.

Teaching Notes, 3rd grade, 20110915

A funny thing happened today - my first class (the one with the substitute teacher last week) didn't show up. There was no explanation, and no student who dropped by to inform me that the teacher had forgotten. I would later learn that during that afternoon another school staff person was leading the class, and that individual didn't know that music class was supposed to take place that afternoon. This means that that first class is going to be at least one week behind the other class, and probably more given what took place during Week 1.

As such, I only taught one 3rd grade class. I did however, also teach a Kindergarten class for the first time, which I'll cover in a different blog entry.

I had the students arranged in roughly a 3/4 circle, with the part of the circle closest to the board/front of the room without children. I was also wanted to turn the piano so that the keys faced away from the class. However, as I discovered later, having the piano available could be a tremendous asset.

Hello My Friends Hello	Lead students into the room in song
I led the students singing, and a few students sang along. Since I only had a 3/4 circle, I motioned where students would stop, and I modified the lyrics appropriately. They were seated pretty quickly. We sang the song once through in English and in full echo, and then I had the students sing it all together. I had pre-written "Hello, my friends" on the board, and after we had completed singing, I wrote "Bonjour" underneath "Hello" in a different color, and I taught the students how to say it and what it means. I then wrote "mes amis" next to it, and I had the students figure out what that phrase meant. We then sang "Bonjour, mes amis" together. I pointed out that with English, Mandarin, Spanish (for some children, natively), and now French, the students knew 4 languages.
Well Enough Said	Teach the interjection
Last week, I very quickly taught "Well Enough Said", and I don't think many of the students remembered. I sang the phrase, and hardly anyone responded. So, I spent a minute or two reteaching the response, and I practiced the response a few times during the rest of the class.
Do Re Mi…	Introduce the names of the notes and hand signs
This exercise is loosely based on Bobby McFerrin's demonstration of the pentatonic scale, but of course I'm doing a standard scale. I first sang Do, while doing the hand sign. After a few repetitions, I walked to my left and sang (and signed) Re. I'd go back and forth between the two notes, and then I'd introduce Mi to the (my) left of Re. At that point, the teacher offered to play the notes on the piano as well, and so I immediately had an accompaniment! I made it up to La before stopping, as the class I think getting a little bored.
Everybody Oughta Know	Teach song, zipper like crazy
This worked out pretty well. I taught the song first by echo, got the students to not echo the 3rd line, and then I started asking the students about their day. We zippered things like ice cream (there was an ice cream party), to pets, to family.
The Longer The Faster	Have student do the exercise
This is another exercise that always works. I had the students arrange themselves loosely in a circle, and I had them count to 8. I then paced myself from one side to the other within the counts of 8. There were a couple of students who tried to walk while I walked and I had to remind them that only one person would be walking at any one time. Then, we talked about the shoulder tap on 8, which we practiced a few times. When the music was on, I found myself quickly directing traffic and having kids wait so that they could start walking at the next set of 8 beats. After the exercise was completed, we had a chance to talk about the exercise, what worked, and what made the exercise become more difficult with time (as the song sped up).
Donut Song	Sing to the class as they lined up, have them respond at the end
I felt like I needed something lighthearted to end the class, and so I searched through the MfM 3rd grade sample plans for ideas, and I found the Donut Song. It apparently is a pretty funny song/poem set to the Turkey In The Straw. You can search online for various different variations. The song ends with "Thanks for the donut… Good bye!", and so I told the students that they'd have line that simply was "Good bye", but they'd have to wait for my signal to sing it. When I got to the end, the students had forgotten their role! So, I had to repeat that last phrase to get them to sing.

This was a fun class. The only other thing that I had in the back of my mind was to introduce rhythm sticks, but I'll do that next week. I also plan on having the students sing "I Think You're Wonderful", which I know they sing during the Wednesday minimum day assemblies.

Teaching Notes, 20110908

We are back! One of my long term goals was to establish weekly music classes for all grade levels at the school, and I'm happy to announce that we've managed to do it at the start of the 2nd year of Music for Minors at the school. In order to cover all of the classes, we ended up hiring a professional music teacher through MfM for 4th and 5th grade, while recruiting new docents for all of 1st grade and one Kindergarten class. As a result, with returning docents for 2nd grade and a veteran docent coming to the school for the other Kindergarten classes, I found myself teaching the two 3rd grade classes this year.

This represents the first year where I can truly leverage my past lesson plans, specifically from last year when I taught 3rd and 4th grade. This year's group of students also had no music last year (and thus no significant music during their entire experience at the school), which means that I can start from scratch again with these students.

While I planned a single lesson plan, I ended up with two very diferent experiences; the first class was being led by a substitute teacher, and that made for quite a chaotic scene. The second class was a lot more effective, with the regular teacher present and participating.

I did try to mix in some elements of my first class last year, with some new things. Here's now it turned out.

Hello My Friends Hello	Lead students into the room in song, in different languages
For the first class, this didn't quite go as planned. The students simply started filtering into the classroom before I could issue instructions, as I wanted the students to sit in a circle. By the time they were inside the class, they were scattered randomly in the room. The students were also rather chatty, and although I caught the attention of some students when I migrated to different languages, I was unable to get the students fully engaged, let alone into a circle. For the second class, I greeted the students outside the class, with "Good Afternoon, students". They didn't really know my name, and so they simply responded with "Hello." I quickly got the class into the room. This year, I only have 23 students per class, and they all fit well in the room, when they're in a circle.
Hello in Many Languages	Sing "hello" in sol-mi, have students repeat
I sang hello in at least 10 different languages, and in both classes, I received questions amounting to "do you speak all those languages?" During the first class, I'd ask the students what language they thought they heard me sing, and in retrospect that slowed down the class and made any sort of momentum that I still had left evaporate. Plus, the students stopped singing (echoing) and simply listened and guessed. I was able to at least get students to raise hands. During the second class I didn't ask; I just sang and asked the students to repeat, and I never pointed out the different languages. I did briefly consider re-singing Hello My Friends Hello in some of the different languages, but I chose not to.
Rhythm Names	Have students do something rhythmically with their names, one at a time
For the first class, I had to get the students to reposition themselves in a circle, so I burned a minute doing that - I had the students join hands and then walk away from the center of the class. In doing so, I did noticed that the class had a little of the squeamishness regarding holding hands that I witnessed from last year's classes. I had planned to do a rhythm/body percussion activity reminiscent of the MfM kickoff event from last year, when one would repeat a name while clapping, tapping, etc. to the syllables of the name. Then, after doing the same for the second name, you'd put the two names together and perform the two names' rhythms in beat. You'd form eventually a chain of 4 names, and then reset the sequence. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough confidence in the first class to be able to pull this off, so I ended up just having the students clap their name. For the second class, I did manage to do this, and it worked out perfectly! After about 3 or 4 names, the students understood what was going on. I ended up having a sequence of 5 names at the end to round out the class, and I ended up repeating the sequence faster and faster, which was a ton of fun. In retrospect, I possibly could have done this with the first class. By the end of the exercise, however, the students were now all chatty, their attention mired in a mild chaos.
What Do You Hear?	Ask students about sounds they hear, then have them experiment w/ high and low sounds
I sort of planned on doing this sort of intro in case I needed it, and for the first class, I felt that I did need to do it for that particular class. I tried asking the students about sounds that they heard outside before music class, and sometimes sounds that they heard in the morning. However, I couldn't really get the students focused, nor could I really drive the discussion towards the goal of illustrating the relationship between large things and low sounds, and the converse. I was hoping to sing "I Can Sing Up High", but I didn't feel the students would have appreciated it much.
Old King Glory on the Mountain	Teach song, play the game
I spent a little bit of time teaching the song, and after I felt that the students were able to sing the song well, I had the students try marching and singing at the same time. When we started playing the game, the students in both classes were able to sing pretty well. Mid-way through the exercise I asked the students what they noticed about the inner and outer circles, just to see if the students were paying attention to what was going on. I also asked them to think about how many students were going to be left in the inner circle near the end. The second class got into the song, and when singing it, pointed fingers when singing 1,2,3, sort of like what one does when singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame". I did think about varying the count to 1,2,3,4,5, but I didn't do it.
Well Enough Said…	Teach response
Last year, I used "Well Enough Said" in order to recapture the attention of a class, or to mark transitions, and I wanted to introduce this to the class early. So, as the students lined up to leave, I introduced the response to them. I don't think they really captured it amidst all of the chaos, although the second class was a little more responsive than the first.

I had a whole lot more planned, including discussing the difference bewteen rhythm and beat, playing the cookie jar game, and possibly teaching Everybody Oughta Know, another short song that I used extensively last year. I even looked up that morning the Donut Song, which I was going to toss to the student by the end of class.

A few takeaways.
- the first class really will need the string for seating; I can't imagine having the class seated in a way that I want without some sort of marker on the floor.
- I think I'll recommend keeping kids in line order
- I need to remind the first teacher to allow their students to leave their lunch materials in the classroom.
- I need to turn the piano so that it doesn't face the students. Too many kids were tapping on it, and I plan on making the use of the piano when I have the class under better control.

I do plan on repeating a lot of the original lesson plan for the first class, and hopefully with the regular teacher there, I'll be able to get through far more of the plan.