Teaching Notes, 20111201 (2nd class)

During the previous class (2 weeks ago), we actually had a very good class, and I wanted to extend what we had accomplished during that day. At the same time, I had only 3 more week before the winter break, and so it was time to try to pull off something that was holiday-related.

I also wanted to introduce some instrument usage, and so I had the students sitting in two lines; similar to the other class, as the students walked into the room, they

Hello, World	Review song, introduce stanza
The last time we did this, the students simply echoed the stanza back to me, and I didn't have the lyrics written anywhere. This time, I had the lyrics of the stanza pre-written on the board, in alternating colors. We practiced the stanza first (1) by echo, and (2) together; after singing the stanza together, I fell back to the chorus. (I also took the time to remind the students about the terms "stanza" and "chorus".) I then split the class in two, with the front line of students reading the odd lines and the back line responding with the even-numbered lines. The students sang quite well, and then we ended the song with the chorus.
Sarasponda	Review the song, add motions
Before we got into Sarasponda, I had read about some intervals that could be used as warmup, and so I tried them on the students; they were Do-Mi-Sol-Sol-Mi-Do, Sol-Fa-Mi-Re-Do, Sol-La-Sol. That was actually a little bit difficult to pull off without going through the Solfege scale quickly one time, as the students didn't seem to realize that Do-Mi was a jump. It took a while for the students to get used to the intervals, and I realize that I need to spend more time practicing intervals. I introduced the song quickly by having the students echo me for the first two lines. Before we continued with the song, I then asked the class what the song was about. Sarasponda is of course a nonsense word, but it was supposed to sound like a spinning wheel, and so we talked about the song and how it was a song about those sounds. (I threw in the word "onomatopoeia", but it didn't sound like a lot of students knew what it meant.) When singing the start of each of the first two lines ("Sarasponda…"), I had the students move their arms in circles in front of them (with the axis parallel to their shoulders), as if they were simulating the movement of a spinning wheel. During the 2nd lines, they pretended they were pulling thread from the wheel, so they reached out in front of them, and pretended to pull with one of their hands. For the last line, the students were done spinning, so they were to brush their hands together as if to signal that they were done. And finally, we continued to clap during "Ret Set Set" for that was when the students were tapping the spindle. The movements did add some more life to the song, and I think the students appreciated it a bit more. I do have to say that this year's attempt at Sarasponda was a lot more effective than last year's, and I think I spread out the additions a bit better this time around.
Bells, Tambourines, and patterns	Introduce bells, tambourines, and written rhythmic patterns
Similar to the previous class, I introduced the bells to the class, and we talked about the construction of the bells, the sounds, and proper ways to play them. Eventually, I handed off the bells to the front line of the class. We spent 3 iterations trying to play (or clap, for the back line) them all at once, on cue. But this time, instead of practicing much more with only bells, I quickly stopped to pass out tambourines to the back line. (I realize now that unlike past classes, I haven't been singing quick songs while I've been passing the instruments out. Whoops.) After talking a bit about playing the instruments in more than one way, and practicing playing a single tap/strike together, I then proceeded to write a line on the board representing our single tap. I got the students to follow a verbal 4-count, and then we played the single tap. Next, I wrote another vertical line, and we practiced playing two hits in beat after a 4-count. Next was the continuous shake, which I represented with a squiggle ("~"). We practiced a few times playing ||~ for a bit, and quickly I expanded the pattern to ||~ ||~ |||| ~|. I didn't go into the number of beats, or how the ~ lasted twice as long; I just had them play along with me. We sped up the pattern more and more, until we were ready for our next surprise…
Jingle Bells	Sing the song while playing the instruments
I told the class that I'd be singing something shortly, and that they could sing along if they could figure out what the song was, but otherwise, they had to keep playing their instruments. Of course, once I broke into Jingle Bells, everyone started to sing. I kept playing a tambourine myself while gesturing to the board, and the students kept up as well. Total Fun!

We ended the day with Goodbye my Friends Goodbye, and even though the students have heard that tune many a time, they were quite happy to sing it as they lined up to exit.

With the success of the instruments, I'll likely bring them again at least one more time before the holiday break. I will also want to spend more time going over the different kinds of notes, durations, and the concept of the rest.

Teaching Notes, 20111201 (1st class)

This is the first class after Thanksgiving, and because I was out of town during the full week before Thanksgiving (and the teacher and I weren't able to schedule a makeup class that fit both of our schedules), it was again a long block of time since my last class with these students (3 weeks). Plus, this first class of 3rd graders were now another week behind my other class.

I have only 3 classes (including this one) before winter break, and so I though I'd include some holiday cheer, along with some instrument play. Thus, I had the students sit in two lines. What was interesting and unintended was after leading in the first batch of students along the front lines, and as I led the other half of the class to the back lines, the front students turned towards me, and so I had two lines of students facing each other. That could indeed be a useful technique if I decided to do some partner dancing involving a large line.

Hello World	Revisit the chorus of the song
I started singing Hello World with my guitar, but the response from the students was lukewarm at best. I don't know if it was because the students were coming straight from lunch/PE, or they just weren't into it, but after singing through the chorus, I had the students sit up straight, and we tried singing again, this time to a bit more success. After we finished singing, we talked a bit about how for every instrument, there are always at least two ways to play it. I asked the students if they noticed that I was doing something other than strumming the guitar, and a few noticed that I tapped the instrument at some point in the song.
Hello My Friends	Revisit song, add Korean
Similar to what I had done with the other class a few weeks ago, I had pre-printed the lyrics, one language per sheet, and created a vertical lyric sheet by taping the sheets together, in language order. We sang through the languages we had previously covered, and then I presented them with Korean. (Previously, someone from the class asked for Korean, and so voila - there it was.) I asked if anyone knew how to read it (안녕, 내 친구/annyeong nae chingu) and indeed two students knew what it said and what it meant. To help out the class, I had printed out the English transliteration of the words, and we practiced as a class saying the words together. We then sang the stanza in Korean. I didn't do the coda walk up the language chain this time around; I figured again that I'd just plow on ahead with new material.
Do Re Mi	Review the scale, then the song, then add dynamics
I had the scale of 7 chairs already set up in the front of the room, and I quickly reviewed the notes and hand signs. (The students even now aren't really picking up the hand signs, but I continue to do them.) After a quick run up and down the scale, I then had the class sing the Do Re Mi song while I put out the preprinted caricatures of each note (the same ones I've used in past classes). We then broke to talk about dynamics. I introduced the terms forte and piano to the students, and rather than just tell them what they meant, I asked how they felt when we spoke each word in a way that was either strong or soft. Someone had asked about Italian during Hello My Friends, and I was happy to let the class know that forte and piano were indeed Italian (and not Spanish). We then repeated the song twice while I held up a sign that either said FORTE or piano. The students had a ton of fun with this.
Bells and Tambourines	Introduce the instruments, get students to play simple rhythms
I took out a bell ring, and immediately I was met with ahhhs, oohs, and a lot of children telling me that they knew what I had. We talked about the material of the bells, and how they had to hold it without touching the metal. Keeping with the theme of playing an instrument in two different ways, I showed them that you can give bells a strong single shake, or you can do a continuous shake. I passed out the bells to the front line of students, and I had them practice playing together by having the students watch my hands; with one hand raised I lowered the hand, and asked the students to shake their bells when one hand passed the other. We practiced this a few times. I tried having them shake twice using this method, and it got messy very quickly, and so I had the students start playing two or three beats after I gave them a 4-beat count. At this point, I passed out tambourines to the back row, again illustrating how the instrument could be played in multiple ways. On the whiteboard, I drew one vertical line, and we practiced all playing bells or tambourines with a single hit or shake after a verbal 4-count. I then drew a second line, and we played instruments twice, in beat, after a verbal 4-count. After that, I then drew a squiggle, and asked the student what that meant; a few realized that it was going to be the "other" way to play their instruments, i.e. a longer shake. With the ||~ pattern, the students would shake pretty long, and so I had to motion to cut them off after two beats of the continuous shake. I then started writing more patterns until I generated ||~ ||~ ||~ ||~ ||~ ||~ |||| ~~ We practiced this sequence, and each time I sped up the tempo more and more, because for the last time, we sang…
Jingle Bells	Play instruments while singing the chorus
I didn't tell the class in advance what we were really singing, but I did tell them that if (and only if) they knew what I was singing, they could sing along. And, with a 4-count (more like 1,2, 1,2,3,4) , we were off! The students of course knew the song after the first two words, and we all sang together, while playing the sequence twice through. Instant success.
Donut Song	Sing the Donut song, have students step/clap to rhythm and answer with the final words
I first had the students do a stomp, stomp, stompstomp, clap pattern, which I taught Simon-style (adding one action each iteration). I then proceeded to sing the song, breaking in the middle to ask the students what a 5-cent piece was. Before I started the song, though, I did warn the students that they had a two-syllable part ("good bye"), and that they had to figure out when to sing it. I ended the song with the shave-and-a-haircut tune of "thanks for the donut", but no one chimed in. Whoops. That's ok - I sang that last line one more time, and the students got it.

The students did wonderfully! This class historically had the toughest time trying to stay focused, but this time the students, especially after getting a chance to play the instruments, were very well focused. It was a welcome surprise for me, and perhaps I'll just have to teach more classes with instruments!

Teaching Notes, 20111115 (2nd class)

For this particular week, I had to hold my classes at an alternate time and day because I wasn't going to be in town during my regular day. I only managed to teach one of my two classes, and the one class happened to be the 2nd of the two 3rd grade classes, which means that the 1st class was going to fall behind even more.

The music room wasn't available during this day, and so I held class in the students' regular classroom - this was actually the first time I ever held class in a room other than the music room, at any school. As a result, the students didn't have to walk into the room, and they ended up sitting in a grid near the front of the classroom.

Hello, World	Review song, introduce stanza
With guitar in hand, I sang the song with the students, and simply went right into the the stanza following the chorus. I had the students echo the stanza back to me, and finally we sang the chorus again. I didn't want to spend too much time on the song, so we moved on.
Hello My Friends	Review the song, add Korean
I had pre-printed out the lyrics to Hello My Friends in all of the languages, one language per sheet, and I had the papers taped together vertically in sequence. We sang through the languages that we had covered before. And then, I had Korean attached as the last sheet; the words were printed in Korean, and when I asked if the students could read it, they were a little dumbfounded. But I had also printed on the opposite side an English transliteration of the words ("annyeong nae chingu"), allowing the students to read and sing in Korean! After practicing the Korean lyrics, we then sang through the stanza in Korean, followed by ending the song up the language chain as we've done in past classes.
Seasons	Review the song and practice singing in parts
Similar to the previous song, I had also pre-printed the lyrics to Seasons (fall version), and hung the lyrics on the board. The lyrics were printed with each line in a different color, which then allowed me to split the class into first two portions, and eventually 3 parts (left, right, back). After a while, the students really started having a lot of fun with this as I varied who sang which part.
Sarasponda	Teach by rote, talk about the lyrics and song
I was never really able to teach this last year, and so I really looked forward to teaching this to the students. I emphasized how the students had to really watch me and what I was saying. I had the students also clap to "ret set set", something that I felt kept the song interesting as the words are otherwise nonsense. We eventually were able to sing through the entire song, while clapping to those three words every time. I'll definitely work on the song later in the year; we didn't even talk about what the song was about much.

We ended the day with Goodbye My Friends Goodbye, and out of the room I went.

I thought the class went pretty well despite not being in the normal room. I did actually spend a little bit of time talking about music without instruments (as we were without our usual assortment of instruments), and I ended up playing a few songs on my laptop (and its tiny speakers) that involved mostly a capella music. One of the songs ("Crayola Doesn't Make a Color") seend pretty interesting to some of the students, and so I might teach that song to the class formally later in the year.