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.
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