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!