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.