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.
No comments:
Post a Comment