Teaching Notes, 2nd grade, 20121220

Today was one of the few times when I had the opportunity to teach the same class in back to back weeks. Since today was the last day before the winter break, and just about all classes (including my two classes) were holding holiday parties during the last half hour of school, the other docent and I decided to teach one class apiece during the first half hour (for about 20 minutes), and then we'd combine the two classes for a big 50-student sing-a-long. My class for the first half hour was the class I typically taught first.

Everybody Oughta Know	Warm up students with the song
As the students gathered onto the carpet, I started singing this song, and only a few students sang along with me. Thus, I turned this into a warmup-review, and we methodically covered how the song was sung. We ended up singing this all the way through three times.
Winter Fantasy	Review song w/ staff music
Last week, the students very briefly saw the lyrics and music to Winter Fantasy, and so I wanted to spend the majority of the time that I had with them to teach the song properly. With the sheet music for the entire song now on display, I walked through the song with the students one line at a time via echo. We then sang the song together two lines at a time, although I had to spend a little more time focusing on the faster parts of the song (e.g. "everybody rushing 'round"). This also allowed me to review the different kinds of notes - half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes; nearly every part of the song involving eighth notes was sung quickly. I discovered today that music displayed via the projector works well for quarters, half, and whole notes, but the projection resolution isn't great for thin stems, particularly for the eighth notes. As a result, I had to draw with a dry erase marker the same notes so that the students could see the rhythm. We practiced this a few times before declaring us ready for the sing-a-long.
Introduction to Ukulele	Introduce instrument, allow students to strum
A few students before class started noticed that I brought a ukulele, and I was planning to use it during the sing-a-long. Thus, with the time that I had left before the other classroom students arrived, I broke out the uke and started showing it to the students. I've done this with my classes each year, and this time was no different - we talked about its similarities/differences when compared to a guitar. I also walked around the students, allowing each to do a single-finger strum so that they could feel what it was like to strum the strings. Finally, I talked about how sounds meant vibrations (they could see it in the strings when I plucked them), and when I moved a finger up the fingerboard, the sound pitch went up. I then talked about how small things typically meant high pitches, while large things typically meant lower pitches. It was at this point when the students from the other class came in…
Jingle Bells + Winter Fantasy	Have both classes sing both songs together
When the other class came in, I now had both classes side by side. I asked the other class if they had a song to sing; they nodded in affirmation. At this point, I started strumming a C-chord and sometimes an open G, to suggest a starting pitch, as I wanted to keep the two classes singing in C. I then had the other docent lead this group of students to sing Jingle Bells. After they had completed, I also announced that my class had a song to sing, and I led my group through Winter Fantasy, also in C. At this point, I told the students that our songs could sing their songs together! Taking the tempo somewhat more slowly, I gave the students a count to 4, and we were off! Having the ukulele was I think very helpful, since I was able to enforce some sort of regular beat with the strum. The second class (singing Jingle Bells) were singing rather loudly, almost shouting, and while I let both groups finish (and finish together they did), I noted to the second class that they didn't have to shout, as they couldn't hear what the first class was singing. We sang through the song again, and this time, the first(!) class was overpowering the students. I wanted to get one more good attempt down, and so I told both classes to sing softly, and I gave them an example using the first ilnes of each song. The third time was indeed a charm, and we were able to get both classes to sing together quite nicely! During this activity, I had the overhead display both sets of lyrics, split so that the second class's seated position was in line with their lyrics, and vice versa. The lyrics were also printed so that simultaneously sung lyrics were on the same vertical position on the paper.
12 Days of Christmas	Sing together, change lyrics
I had a little treat for the students - I had printed out the 12 different stanza lines in descending order (as if it were the 12th day), and I had covered up all but the lines that were relevant to the current iteration, i.e. starting with the very last line. Each iteration, I'd reveal the line above, and we would continue singing. But, I wanted this to be more than just your standard holiday fare - instead, I told the students after the 3rd iteration that they clearly knew the song. For that reason, I changed the lyrics to the 8 days of Hannkukah, and starting with the 4th line from the bottom, we continued to sing. After completing the 6th iteration, I changed the lyrics again to the 12 days of vacation, and again started, this time from the 7th day. After we hit the 8th day, I switched to the 12 days in Hawaii (a mishmash of some benign lyrics I found on the web mixed in with some lyrics from "Numbah One Day of Christmas"). By the time we finished the 11th song, I told the students that since there were parents next door finishing preparations for the party that we'd be better off singing the traditional lyrics, so we sang the 12th iteration using the original lyrics. This was a ton of fun, in every sense of the word. The students started with a familiar tune, but they were captivated by what was the next line, especially after the 3rd when we were no longer singing the standard words. I found the lyrics to the 12 days of vacation online, and in retrospect, since I knew I wasn't going to sing all 12, I could have eliminated some lines (e.g. "don't hit your sister') with something more benign, but the kids sang them gleefully anyway.

And so, we were able to hold court with 50 students for two songs. With a group so large, it's difficult to spend time answering questions, and just as if I had a standard size class of 1st or Kinders, you have to steer the class to the next activity with little downtime and with little options for the students. But it was clearly doable, and I suspect in the new year we'll try something like this again. Have a happy and healthy holiday, everyone. We'll return to the blog (and to more classes) in January.

Teaching Notes, 2nd grade, 20121213

With classes only every other week for me, this was my first (and really the only) time to cover end-of-year holiday material. At the same time, I really wanted to review forms with the Nutcracker snippets that I've used in past classes. I also wanted to prepare the class for a mini singalong that will take place the following week.

March of the Toy Soldiers (Nutcracker) and forms	Play song for students and discuss forms
I started playing the song (over the room's speaker system - a first for me!) while the students were gathering onto the carpet. There were several students who remarked that they knew the song and that it was from The Nutcracker. (Some also noted that they themselves were performing in a local rendition of the show.) I had pre-cut the three different musical themes to the show, and after the students listened to the entire song (about 2 1/2 minutes), I asked them to think of how they felt when hearing the first of the three snippets. I then asked the students, and I received (as expected) a variety of answers centering around dancing, marching, and in an overall sense, feeling positive. I then played the second snippet, and I received answers of "mad, stomping, and mild anger". The third snippet yielded feelings of fright, running, chasing, and hurriedness. I then had the teacher choose three students who were "having a good day", to come up to the front and represent one of the three musical snippets. Then, I asked the students to tell me whose music was playing while I replayed the original song; I wrote the first initial of the student's name corresponding to the snippet being played. The students did a pretty good job, although I did get more spurious answers about whose music was playing in the second class. With the pattern written out (AABAACAABAA), we recited the string of letters and I re-introduced the concept of the form to the students. Note that I doubled the lettering of the first snippet - by doing so, it keeps the amount of time attributable to each snippet the same.
Jingle Bells	Run through song, review written notes
I took out a E tone bell (more on this later), displayed a page of lyrics (via the overhead projector onto the whiteboard) to (the chorus of) Jingle Bells, and instructed the class to sing what they saw. Of course they sang away. I asked them how many syllables there were for the first three phrases of the first line, and they answered correctly; I wrote out eleven vertical lines representing the syllables. I then asked the students if the syllables were all the same. Their initial answer was "no", but because the words were different. I then asked them to think of another reason why the syllables were different other than the differing words, and I couldn't get a compelling answer. I then recited the first line as if every syllable took the same amount of time. The students of course noted that the words aren't supposed to be spoken that way. They weren't supposed to be sung that way either, and so I asked them why not. At that point, a few students noted that some syllables had more space between them. Yay! I knew that the students had music in past years, enough to know about the Kodaly rhythmic notes. And so, I decided to simply change the vertical bars into quarter and half notes by adding the circles to them. (I kept "jingle all the" near the end of that first line as 4 quarters.) Many students remembered the quarter and half note notation. I focused on the first measure (although I didn't use the term "measure" yet). I asked the students what 1/4 + 1/4 was; it took a while (and I don't think the students have quite worked with fractions yet), but eventually someone answered that you'd get 1/2. I then asked what was 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/2, and that took a little while, but eventually we reached an answer of 1. I wrote a vertical line to separate those three notes from the next three, but I didn't say why; I also noted that the next three notes also added up to 1. For the next four notes, I asked the students what 4 x 1/4 was - I got a few students also say "1", although I don't know if all of them knew exactly why, as I think some were just expecting a pattern. I drew two more vertical lines to separate the remaining measures on that first line. Finally, I pointed out that the last syllable/note/word had to take up the whole time, which was "1" - hence, the whole note. At this time, I re-introduced the term "measure", and its purpose in music. I then showed the students what the notes would look like for the rest of the song - I replaced the overhead projection of the words with another projection of the words plus notes (without the staff). I received some oohs and ahhs. I then took the time to point out two tidbits that we didn't see in the first line: eighth notes in a later measure, and two tied half notes ("sleigh" in "one horse open sleigh"). I tried to explain that the eighth notes were two syllables that had to fit in the space of a quarter, but I think I rushed that concept a bit; I eventually just offered that they were eighth notes, and 1/8 + 1/8 = 1/4, rather than having the students come up with that organically. The tied half notes were easier to explain - the students figured out that it was really representing two tones for the same syllable. I asked what would happen if the second of the tied notes were placed lower than the first, and the students correctly concluded that the sound would go down instead of up. I asked the students if they could see the height differences with many of the notes. Even notes that were only a step different had noticeable height differences, but I told the class that (1) students in the back of the class would have a much harder time seeing the height difference, and (2) it's hard to measure how much higher or lower you should sing the next note. I asked the students what helps them write on a piece of paper neatly - and they all knew that they needed lines in order to do that. And so, I replaced the overhead chart of notes and words with one with the same notes and words on musical staffs. I didn't mention the name "staff", but I did show them the helpfulness of having lines on a piece of paper. At this point, I changed the projected paper to the (first) stanza of Jingle Bells, and with that displayed, I gave them the sound of a "G" tone bell, and then asked the students to sing away. At the end of the stanza, I re-displayed the chorus in full musical staff glory. The pages of the lyrics, with and without the staff or notes were actually created via LibreOffice, although any drawing program that supports layers would do. I made the words, staff, and notes all different layers, and printing with our without these features was really easy. What was also nice is that the positions of the words and notes didn't change from slide to slide, and I think that really eliminated a source of random questions about differences between slides that don't matter. One last note here - during the math-related discussions, some students preferred to think of quarters and halfs in terms of dollars; 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/2 = 100 (cents). Perhaps that might be why "eighths" didn't make as much sense, instead of quarters and half (dollars).
Winter Fantasy	Immerse song with sheet music
After the students sang Jingle Bells, I projected the sheet music for Winter Fantasy. I asked the students to look at the music while I sang through. I then asked the students to try to sing with me while they read the lyrics on the board again. I didn't really have much time to practice this, and I'll explain why I threw this up on the board later. The students seemed to pick up on the song pretty well, except for the faster parts when the students' voices simply dropped off. Incidentally, with Jingle Bells using quarters for "Jingle", Winter Fantasy ends up being littered with half notes. but the students didn't seem to be bothered by that. You can find a link to the Winter Fantasy music here.

Believe it or not, that was it! All that took nearly 30 minutes for the 1st class, and nearly 35 minutes for the second class. The students in the 2nd class wanted to sing the donut song at the end of class, and so I obliged them, even though it made the class even longer.

So, the following week is the last week before break, and our class happens to be on the last *day* before break. Both classes will be having a joint party and rather than not have music (or interrupt the party with music class), the other docent and I decided to try to do simultaneous classes during the 1st class timeslot, followed by a short sing-a-long with both classes. My *hope* is to be able to sing both Jingle Bells and Winter Fantasy at the same time; they do work well together, but it'll take some practice. The class that I have will likely be singing Winter Fantasy, and I'll have to make sure that they're prepared to sing even with the other class singing a different song. It'll also be a challenge to keep both classes in tune, as the 2nd class tends to want to shout rather than sing.

In past years, I've had students play tone bells to Jingle Bells, and it's always a big hit. However, this time, I clearly didn't have enough time, even with the second class for which I had more than 30 minutes. I don't like doing it, but I did mention to the second class that we were unable to spend much time with the tone bells because too many distractions impeded timely progress during the class.

Teaching Notes, Pre-K, 20121206

Once every year, I've had an opportunity to teach at a preschool (either where my son or daughter attends), and today was that day. This is actually at the preschool affiliated with the school where I normally teach, and the teacher of the class had been trying to get me to come in ever since the school year started. But, this week the preschool teachers were introducing various musical instruments to the kids, and so it seemed natural for me to come in this week.

I had a lot of instruments with me - a guitar, a ukulele, a glockenspiel, a flat drum, a pair of bongos, four triangles, two pairs of claves, and a multitude of egg shakers and maracas. Needless to say, I was ready to show them a whole lot instruments. However, the class evolved into more of a regular class. Here's what happened.

Hello (Ella Jenkins)	Immerse students as they made their way to the carpet
When I arrived, the students were just coming out of their post-lunch nap, and so there were a lot of bleary-eyed children. By the time I had all of my equipment, a majority of the kids had put away their sheets, and so it was time for me to start singing. This song is the Hello song from one of Ella Jenkins' albums ("Hello, hello, hello and how are you?…"), and I simply started singing it to the students. After three iterations, they started to smile a bit more, and so I asked them whether or not they could sing with me. Some nodded, and so we sang it together one more time. I think I was able to get about half of the students to sing part of the song.
Hello In Many Languages	Have students copy me
I tried to mimic what Ella Jenkins did on her CD again, and so we covered various greetings in English, followed by Mandarin (which everyone of course knew), Spanish, French, Japanese, German, and then Hawaiian. The students seemed to have a lot of fun repeating words that were certainly different from what they normally heard during the day. I then used "aloha" as a way to move to the next activity…
Aloha Kakahiaka	Teach phrases, and have kids follow a simple hula
After teaching the students "aloha", I then taught them the three aloha phrases (aloha kakahiaka, aloha auinala, aloha ahiahi) and explained what they meant. I then told them to mimic what I did, and so I started singing the song while doing very simple movements. For aloha auinala, I asked the kids where the sun was in the afternoon - "the sky" they (mostly) said. So, I during that part of the song, I had them briefly curl their arms above their heads to make a circular sun. When we got to "aloha ahiahi", I asked what they did at night - "sleep" they all answered, and so I had them put their palms together and make a pillow under their heads. The kids seemed to follow the motions pretty well in general, and even though they didn't know the words (I only went through the song once), many of them picked up pieces of the melodic and lyrical pattern to contribute vocally just a little bit.
Intro to Guitar	Show guitar, and let the children strum
I had plenty of instruments to get through today, and so it was time finally to bring out the guitar. The students actually had seen a guitar plenty of times during the week, and so many of them shouted out the instruments name when I brought it out. We talked a little about the strings on the guitar, and I played a few chords. At this time, I had all of the students raise their hand if they wanted to try a little strum - just about everyone did, so I walked around the circle (more like a square), and I allowed each child to strum lightly the strings with one finger. Unlike in other classes when I tried this, the pre-K's never overstrummed, and many only played one or two strings. I asked the students if their finger felt funny - no one said so. And so, I told them to watch closely the biggest string as I plucked it hard. I wanted them to see the vibrating string, and most noticed it. I told them that in order to have sound, you had to have movement. Many didn't quite get that, and so I had a few students place their palm on the back of the guitar while I plucked the same string. At that point, those students acknowledged that they did indeed feel something there! I then had the students watch me as I plucked the top E string as I moved a finger up the fingerboard. I asked them what was happening to the sound - and they noted that it was changing! However, as they were pre-K's, they couldn't really tell me if it was higher or lower, and so I told them that the sound was going up, up, up! I reversed my direction on the fingerboard, and now I was illustrating to them a sound that was going down, down, down. I spent probably 10 seconds trying to explain how the length of the string was changing the pitch, but it was very apparent that that was way over their heads. And so, I asked them to think about something really big, like, a train. What does a train sound like? Well, if you ask that to pre-K's, they will all say in a high voice, "toot, toot!", which isn't quite what I wanted. I had them mimic me with "chugga chugga" in a low low voice; at that point, I asked them if a train was big or small. (They answered that question correctly.) I then asked them to make the sound of a little bird, and while some were making big deep tweets, I made a tiny one and everyone followed. Was a bird big or small, I asked, and they all said that it was small. At that point, I quickly tried to get them to think that big meant low and small meant high. I don't know if that really stuck... At this point, I told them that even though they didn't change their size, their voice was making low and high sounds! That was a good segue into…
I Can Sing Up High	Talk about sounds, and teach song with movement
This is always a Kindergartener favorite, and so I was pretty sure that this would work well with the pre-K's. With the concept of a high sound and a low sound in hand, I had the class follow my motions. I sang the first line, reached up to the ceiling, and the kids followed suit. I did the a similar thing reaching down to my toes for the second line. The kids, now standing, were really having a ton of fun with this, and I continued with the exercise until we finished it. We did this again for a second time, and for the third time, I asked the students to try to follow as best as I could, and I did the song slowly, but without stops after each line. We did this two more times, both just a hair faster than the last. For something like this, I didn't want to try to make the activity so fast that they couldn't follow. That just wouldn't have been fair to the 4- and 5- year olds.
Who's That (Laurie Berkner)	Sing song with guitar
With the students seated again, I grabbed the guitar again, and I asked the students to echo "Who's that?" whenever I sang the same phrase. We practiced this twice, and then I started singing the song. Who's That is a great pre-K and K song; it gets the students echoing at different parts of the song, and so they still have to pay attention to when I say those two fun words. I also took advantage of the fact that the students can't really read much; I had the words printed right in front of me, and the kids didn't care.
Intro to Glockenspiel	Demo instrument
I borrowed a small glockenspiel from the regular stash from the school, and when I showed it to the students, many chimed in saying that they either had something like it at home, or that it looked like a piano. (Funny how that's the same reaction that I get from 3rd and 4th graders!) I realized at this point that it would take a lot of precious time to have each of the students try to play (and it would be probably really cacophonous), and so I ended up playing a C scale. At that point, the kids started to sing Do-Re-Mi, and I realized that there was a scale already written behind me on the wall, with Do-Re-Mi (and the rest of the scale) labelling the notes! Clearly they've been practicing for my arrival. :) At this point, I used the glockenspiel to sing…
I am a Pizza (Charlotte Diamond)	Immerse
There were a few kids who knew this song, and so we had a good time singing this. Even though I asked the students to echo me, I had to still gesture whenever I wanted an echo, which actually works out since the end of each stanza doesn't really echo. The kids predictably had fun with this song.
Twinkle Twinkle and other variants	Illustrate different lyrics for the same tune
I asked the students to mimic my hands as I started doing flashes with them while keeping a beat. Very quickly, students started to sing Twinkle Twinkle; I had forgotten that regularly-paced hand flashes were the international symbol for that song. When they finished, I gave them a puzzled look, and I informed them that I had learned the song but with very different words. I asked them if they wanted to hear it (and of course they said yes), and so I kept doing the flashes, but I sang A-B-C instead. Many children sang along with me, of course. When I finished, I gave them a pensive look, and then told them that actually I knew other words; I started singing Baa Baa Black Sheep, and again students laughed and sung with me. That made 3 songs to the same tune, and there were a couple of students who realized what was happening. I then told the class that Iiked their version the best, and so we finished this exercise by singing Twinkle Twinkle one last time.
Colors (Kira Willey)	Have students move on cue to parts of the song
Colors was a song that I had never used in a class, but it seemed like a great song for pre-K (and perhaps Kinders). The song features 9 colors (and a rainbow), and so for each color, I asked the class who was wearing that particular color. I then asked them what has all of the colors that you could think of, and plenty of the children shouted "rainbow!". At this time, I told them that I was going to sing a song about colors, and when I sang a color that they were wearing, they could move their hands in the air. Furthermore, everyone had a color that was a part of a rainbow, and so when I sang "rainbow", everyone could move around. I had pre-printed illustrations about each color that fit the lyric (e.g. green cricket, grey fog), and I had ordered the slides so that I could sing them in the order of the song. I had to have 6 different illustrations of rainbows, and to make it a little fun, I threw in a rainbow cake as well as a cartoonish rainbow into the stack of sheets. Needless to say, the kids had a great time with this, especially when one of the printed sheets was upside down.
Razzama Tazzama	Dive right into the activity
Razama Tazzama is one activity that is great for the smaller kids. I had the students watch what I was doing; I asked them to follow me, and so I jumped right into the song. No one sang with me during the first chorus, but there were plenty of singing voices by the time we got to the second chorus. Similar to what I noticed earlier, unlike the older kids, these pre-K'ers don't go nuts with the motions, even at the "wally-woo-hoo". That made this a ton of fun without any kids flopping into each other. Yay.
Goodbye in many languages	Have children echo me
It was nearly time to go, and so I told them that I wanted to say goodbye, but in the same manner that I used to say hello. So, the students echoed me as I said goodbye in French, Spanish, Japanese, and then Mandarin.
Blow a Kiss (Laurie Berkner)	Have children blow kisses to the song
This was my goodbye song that I used last year, and it's a real fun one for pre-K and Kinders. I first asked the students how to blow a kiss, and they tried that a few times. I then told them to do that same motion when I sang "blow a kiss". The song provides plenty of opportunities, but after a while, the students simply kept blowing kisses without waiting for a prompt. I started playing this song on guitar, but during a chorus near the end of the song, I put my guitar down and I tried to rally the students again to blow kisses when the lyrics called for it. Anyhow, this was (and is) a great song to end the day.

Even though this was just a pre-K class, I had many more songs and activities lined up; I simply ran out of time. While kids at that age require that you (the teacher) keep changing the activity, each activity actually takes more time than it would for older kids, as you have to go that much more slowly. I noticed though that I could get the students to accomplish a whole lot with large sweeping motions (as in "I Can Sing Up High"), and also just by walking around and smiling when singing. The pre-K's respond to smiles so much more effectively than any other age group.

Other activities that I didn't get to was the Balloon Song from Ella Jenkins, If You Got 1 from Justin Roberts, I Am A Bubble form Charlotte Diamond, I'm A Gonna Drive My Car by Laurie Berkner, the Two Hands poem, 5 Days Old also from Laurie Berkner, and Victor Vito (Laurie Berkner once more). In retrospect, all of that alone is enough for yet another class, and so I told the teachers that perhaps one day later in the school year, I could come back and teach some more.

Teaching Notes, 2nd grade, 20121129

This is my first class back from Thanksgiving, and even though I have only one more class scheduled between now and the end of the calendar year (more on that later), I wanted to review some more Thanksgiving material while also bringing the 2nd class into the world of dance. Today was also an interesting exercise in going with the flow in terms of class planning; I ended up taking the first exercise in a completely different direction than I had originally planned...

A Rig A Jig Jig	Lead class into room with the song, teach two more stanzas, and settle in a circle
The last time I covered A Rig A Jig Jig, I had used it to lead students lining in from outside into the room and eventually into a circle. I was all ready to do exactly that with the first class, but thanks to the rain, the students arrived at the door a bit early, and not all that once. It didn't make sense to have them all wait in the rain outside, and so they filtered in. I still wanted to get them following me immediately (rather than having them just stand around and wait for the rest of the class), and so I gestured for a few students to follow me, and I started walking around the outside of the carpet, but in different ways - sometimes I'd just walk, sometimes I'd hop, sometimes I'd walk sideways or backwards, and sometimes I'd vary the length or height of my steps. Anyhow, I kept doing this for a while until I had about 80% of the students in, and then I started singing the song. For the second class, the students were seated at their tables, and so I started walking around the class, tapping the shoulders of kids as a signal for them to follow me as I sang. The second class however seemed to have a little more trouble trying to follow the path of the other children; while the first class was able to maintain a circle, the second class seemed to continually shrink the circle over time; at the end of the song (before singing new verses), I had to get the students to re-form the circle around the outside of the carpet. We sang new verses - the clap/stomp verse (with clapping and stomping of course), as the jump/come back down verse (you can guess what we did here). After the stomping verse, I actually had the students stop singing but continue to stomp, in beat, and I asked the students what it meant to have a continuous but steady sound that lasts through the song. Only a few remembered "beat". :/ We ended the song and walk with A Rig A Jig Jig (the chorus). And, that's where things went differently. I was going to move onto the next exercise, but instead, I decided to write "Chorus" and "Stanza" on the board, and I taught the two classes what the words meant. I then asked the students what they sang the most, and naturally everyone picked out "A Rig A Jig Jig"; I wrote that phrase under "Chorus". Next, I asked the students what else they sang. The students from both classes remembered "Clapping/stomping", and I asked them what was sung next. It took a little while, but we did reach a consensus that indeed A Rig A Jig Jig followed. I wrote "Clapping/stomping" under "Stanza". We continued this process with the other two stanzas ("jump/come back down", and "As I was walking"). I then reviewed with the students what we song, by writing a capital A when we sang the chorus, and a lowercase first letter of a stanza when we sang a particular stanza. This led to a string resembling "AcAjAaA". I sort of forced the students down the path here to make the Stanzas simply "B" (no real reasoning given), and so that transformed the string to "ABABABA". Voila - that was the form of the song, and I told the students that all songs can be boiled down to a form like this. I promised that we'd talk about form again soon.
Well Enough Said	Introduce the Call-Response
As an effort to get more ways to recapture the students' attention, I had them practice the "about that" response to "Well enough said". We tried it a few times, and I promised to use it again either later today, next week, next month, or next year! I did use it in both classes a few times later in the day.
Seasons (fall version)	Teach song by immersion, get students thinking about beat
I had the lyrics for Seasons pre-printed, which I displayed either by hand (not quite ideal) or by projector (much better). Hopefully in the future we can get use of the projector in both classes, as the words are tremendously easier to view via the projector. We sang through the song once, and then I displayed a slightly different version of the song, with the first letter of the first word of each of the four lines (measures) highlighted with a larger, red letter. I asked the students to count how many red letters there were, and I then had them clap during each red letter while singing the song. Without really going into why those letters were read, I showed another variation of the lyrics, where each 1st and 3rd beat of each line was marked with a large red first letter. I had the students count the red letters, and again we sang the song while clapping the red letters. Finally, there was a 4th slide of lyrics, this time with red letters on every beat. Without having them count, I had the students sing and clap immediately. I asked the students whether or not we were singing any faster, and after some thought (incorrectly) that we were, I had them sing again while I stomped, instead of clapped, the beat. I continued to stomp after the singing ended, and I asked the students if I was stomping evenly. The students eventually realized that indeed we weren't singing any faster or slower. I also asked if I was stomping in a steady interval, and that allowed me to point out that the clapping was nothing more than keeping the beat. We did go over how 4x2=8 and 8x2=16. Who says you can't teach math in music class?
John Brown's Baby	Redo, but replace words with motions
I sang the song once more again with the baby motion, and then I told the class that they sang so well that they could probably sing the song without singing the words! I got a few confused looks, and so I told them to show the ASL motion for "baby" instead of singing it with their voice. I did it for them, to expected chuckles, and then I challenged them to try it. It *never* happens fully cleanly the first (or second, or third) time, but I didn't stop the song to correct them. We tried this twice, and there was clear improvement (in the quietness during "baby") from the first to second iteration. We then talked about how to remove "cold" - not feeling frigid, but the virus-borne cold - without noise. I had them practice the "world's quietest sneeze", and while there was always one or two students who kept making a sneezing sound, we were able to do the song with reasonable success. At this point, the second class got really giggly and difficult to control. But, in the first class, I was able to proceed with replacing "chest" with tapping (lightly so that we couldn't hear it) the chest. Finally, I got to talk about how camphor and menthol doesn't smell favorably, and so I had them motion as if they were smelling something terrible. This of course generated a lot of giggles, and I simply had to blaze through the song with that motion. The students definitely had a lot of fun with this.
5 Fat Turkeys	Immerse students into the song and motions
I think I did this only with the second class (as I'll mention later I did something different with the first class), but since Thanksgiving was coming up (and I wouldn't have a class with the students before Thanksgiving), I wanted to do this. This also served as a good way to recapture the students' attention. The students, after JBB, were all chuckling a bit uncontrollably, but I simply held my hands out quietly until I had a quorum of students watching. I then moved one hand into position, then the other into position - and then I just started singing the song. We did it one more time, and then I restarted the whole exercise of leaving the hands out again - this time reversing the hands and making a left-handed turkey. :)
Syncopated Cyril	Teach dance, and try it with the song
I was only able to do this with the first class a few weeks ago, and so I wanted to try this out with the second class. The second class it seems has a harder time to stay focused; the class is very chatty, and there are a few students who have been more physical with each other, something that I don't see in first class. As a result, this was a bit of calculated risk, but I was really hoping for some level of success, since Syncopated Cyril is one of the simplest "dances" that you can think of. Similar to what I did with the first class, I had the students line up on the two outermost edges of the carpet, and I explained that those edges represented the sidewalks of a street. (Even then, there were some students who for fun were jumping into the middle of the street.) Before we practiced crossing the street, I had to remind the students to not bump, push, or run. We practiced crossing a few times, and then it was time to have the people at the top of the lines walk down the middle. I don't think I did a good enough job with the practicing than I did with the first class, as I routinely had students bunch up near the end of the lines, making it that much harder down there to cross the street. This, despite the fact that I didn't even bother having the students try turning around. Alas, it was time to try out the song, and so we started. Again, I had only my laptop and its itty-bitty speakers to play music, which was a bit of a bummer. After the first pair of students walked down, the students (after some encouragement) did cross the street, but it took a long time, and there was no chance of trying to "go back". We were able to get through a few iterations until it became strikingly clear to me (and to many of the students) that people were jumping the lines (someone made their way to the top very quickly after already going down the middle). There was also some shoving going on near the back of the line, and I had to give a very stern warning to all 4 students involved, noting that all 4 had to work together. I stopped the music right there, and I then had the students sit down and talk about what was going on, and why there was so much commotion. It was this time when I asked the students what their room number was (9), and that I was going to call them "Team 9" (something that I got used to using back when I taught 3rd graders two years ago); this group wasn't just a room of students, it was a team, and it was imperative that we all work together to get this working. I also addressed the line jumping; I had the students stand up, line up, and look to their left and right to see who their neighbors were. I then reminded them that after they crossed the street, their neighbors should be the same neighbors. (This apparently was a sort of eureka for many of them.) I asked who had not walked down the center and wanted to, and I reordered the line a bit to put those students near the top. Off we went, with a restart of the song. This time, there was remarkably less pushing, although there was still some (which I was able to address quickly without issue). I still had to remind students to scoot towards the front as pairs of students were walking down the middle. But, in the end, we were able to complete the song, and students enjoyed it enough to ask for more. This was one of those cases where it was better to just re-try the exercise rather than move on or (worse) ask the students if they wanted to try (which would, I'm sure, have led to a lot varied answers and some very vocal No's). I'm glad we were able to get it done the second time around, and it also allowed every child (who wanted to) go down the middle of the path. We ended the exercise with another powwow, talking about what worked. A student noted that it worked better when they all worked as a team to cross the street, which I was happy to hear; if the students take away anything, it would be a way to work together more effectively, even if they don't remember how to do this dance. I had to use Well Enough Said a bunch of times for the second class in order to recapture their attention. At least the WES responses got a bit tighter as the day proceeded.
Many Things I am Thankful For	Teach Song, zipper or solo in substitutions
Since I wanted to do a dance with the second class, I taught this song to only the first class. We started out talking about Thanksgiving, what it meant to the students (people liked spending time with family, etc.), and eventually we talked about the origins of Thanksgiving. I then decided to sing the song, and for good measure, I signed "Earth", "sea" and "friends" in ASL. After singing through the song, I asked what the students were thankful for, and I sang through the song while inserting the students' suggestions. There's always risk of getting some unusual suggestions (someone suggested "money"), but we sang them anyway. My original hope was to get some solos in, and even after suggestions 4-6, no one wanted to do a solo. I finally was able to get two volunteers for suggestions 7 and 8. I had to prompt the students to sing the full zipper "I'm thankful for….", and not just the topic that they were thankful for. But, after we sang through, it seemed like the rest of the class was more inspired to sing solos as well, as there were plenty of hands now shooting up. I probably should have kept going, but I did want to cover more things, and so I changed activities.
Fish and Chips and Vinegar	Immerse students into song, get students to sing multiple parts
I started doing a pat-clap-clap pattern until most of the students started following me, and then I started singing the first stanza to the percussive pattern. During "Pepper, pepper, pepper, salt", I motioned with large sweeping arms adding pepper and salt to an imaginary plate, which amused the children to no end. I had pre-printed out the lyrics, one stanza per sheet, such that each line contained exactly one measure, and for the second class, we managed to project the lyrics onto the board, which helped the class a bit, as we were getting short on time there. We practiced this three times before moving onto the next stanza. For the Dustpan stanza, I changed the percussion to a clap-palm slide-palm slide (as if you were simply rubbing your palms together like they were sand blocks). Again, I immersed the students with the song, and again I had the lyrics projected for the second class. When it came to the 3rd stanza, I ended up motioning the numbers in ASL, and I took a short break to teach 8, 9 and 10 in ASL as well. With all 3 stanzas now covered, I had the students sing the entire song once through and ending again with the first stanza (4 stanzas total). While that was all I could do with the second class, for the first class, I also recorded the students singing - as expected they really loved hearing themselves, but interestingly for the first time they sang to a computer, they were actually singing a bit timidly. I then split the class into two and had one side sing the first stanza repeatedly while I cued in the other side singing the 3rd stanza. It sounded sort of ok, but I had to conduct the classes pretty vigorously in order to keep them together. I recorded them singing the two parts also, and this time, both sides were trying to drown out each other. I played back only a small snippet of the clipped recording, and I talked a bit about the limits of recording, as well as singing without yelling. We'll try this (for both classes) in the near future again.

I was ready to pull off Old King Glory in the first class, but I'm glad I was able to cover a little more Thanksgiving material with them, as OKG can be done pretty much any time.

I really need to take the time either to get access to the sound system in either classroom, or I need to make use of the boombox more. In addition, I also need to find time to bring out some of the instruments.

I'm going to need another tool to recapture the students attention, particularly for the second class. Well Enough Said works great because it's loud, the response is (ideally) quick and loud, and the students are quiet immediately afterward. Some teachers use the "dum didley dum dum" call and answer, and while it sometimes works, I think I'll need to find something more unusual yet strong enough to be effective when the students are chatting or being otherwise noisy and inattentive.

On a side note, I also get to spend some time with my daughter's pre-K class as a music teacher. I did something similar last year, and it sounds like I'll have a similar opportunity again the following week (when I'm not teaching the 2nd graders). And so, my next post will talk about singing with 4- and 5- year olds.

Teaching Notes, 2nd grade, 20121108

Believe it or not, this is my first class back from break, as the break was bookended by a week of minimal days (for parent-teacher conferences) and a week covered by the other docent. That's a total of 5 weeks since the last time I taught the second grade, and that seemed like an eternity. Today was also the first day that featured rain - that meant that all of the students were already in their rooms, chatting away during post-lunch recess time. As a result, there was no opportunity to lead the students into a circle; by the time I had entered the room, the teacher had already started assembling the students into a circle on the perimeter of the carpet.

John Brown's Baby	Teach song via echo, introduce a single motion
Because all of the students in both classes were either on the carpet or about to sit down on the carpet, I simply started off singing the song until the students all sat down. After singing once through, the students were seated well enough for me to have them echo me line by line. I then broke to teach them the word "camphorated." I'm a big fan of trying to use music as an excuse to teach other things, and even though the students might not have a chance to use that word in their daily jargon, I took the time to explain its origins. I chatted about how camphor made people warm, which is what we'd all want when we had a cold. I even talked about camphor and its more modern cousin menthol, and how the "ph" in camphor[ated] sounds like an "f" just like other words they've seen. Who says you can't teach complex words in music class? We sang through the song in echo one more time, and then we sang it together. While we all sang it together, I started signing "baby" when we sang the word. After the end of the song, I asked the students if they noticed what I was doing with my arms, and a few students paid enough attention to point out that I looked like I was rocking a baby. I then had the students practice the motion, which was also ASL for "baby". Who says you can't teach ASL in music class? I'd return to this later…
Well Enough Said	Introduce the Call-Response
As an effort to get more ways to recapture the students' attention, I had them practice the "about that" response to "Well enough said". We tried it a few times, and I promised to use it again either later today, next week, next month, or next year! I did use it in both classes a few times later in the day.
Seasons (fall version)	Teach song by immersion, get students thinking about beat
I had the lyrics for Seasons pre-printed, which I displayed either by hand (not quite ideal) or by projector (much better). Hopefully in the future we can get use of the projector in both classes, as the words are tremendously easier to view via the projector. We sang through the song once, and then I displayed a slightly different version of the song, with the first letter of the first word of each of the four lines (measures) highlighted with a larger, red letter. I asked the students to count how many red letters there were, and I then had them clap during each red letter while singing the song. Without really going into why those letters were read, I showed another variation of the lyrics, where each 1st and 3rd beat of each line was marked with a large red first letter. I had the students count the red letters, and again we sang the song while clapping the red letters. Finally, there was a 4th slide of lyrics, this time with red letters on every beat. Without having them count, I had the students sing and clap immediately. I asked the students whether or not we were singing any faster, and after some thought (incorrectly) that we were, I had them sing again while I stomped, instead of clapped, the beat. I continued to stomp after the singing ended, and I asked the students if I was stomping evenly. The students eventually realized that indeed we weren't singing any faster or slower. I also asked if I was stomping in a steady interval, and that allowed me to point out that the clapping was nothing more than keeping the beat. We did go over how 4x2=8 and 8x2=16. Who says you can't teach math in music class?
John Brown's Baby	Redo, but replace words with motions
I sang the song once more again with the baby motion, and then I told the class that they sang so well that they could probably sing the song without singing the words! I got a few confused looks, and so I told them to show the ASL motion for "baby" instead of singing it with their voice. I did it for them, to expected chuckles, and then I challenged them to try it. It *never* happens fully cleanly the first (or second, or third) time, but I didn't stop the song to correct them. We tried this twice, and there was clear improvement (in the quietness during "baby") from the first to second iteration. We then talked about how to remove "cold" - not feeling frigid, but the virus-borne cold - without noise. I had them practice the "world's quietest sneeze", and while there was always one or two students who kept making a sneezing sound, we were able to do the song with reasonable success. At this point, the second class got really giggly and difficult to control. But, in the first class, I was able to proceed with replacing "chest" with tapping (lightly so that we couldn't hear it) the chest. Finally, I got to talk about how camphor and menthol doesn't smell favorably, and so I had them motion as if they were smelling something terrible. This of course generated a lot of giggles, and I simply had to blaze through the song with that motion. The students definitely had a lot of fun with this.
5 Fat Turkeys	Immerse students into the song and motions
I think I did this only with the second class (as I'll mention later I did something different with the first class), but since Thanksgiving was coming up (and I wouldn't have a class with the students before Thanksgiving), I wanted to do this. This also served as a good way to recapture the students' attention. The students, after JBB, were all chuckling a bit uncontrollably, but I simply held my hands out quietly until I had a quorum of students watching. I then moved one hand into position, then the other into position - and then I just started singing the song. We did it one more time, and then I restarted the whole exercise of leaving the hands out again - this time reversing the hands and making a left-handed turkey. :)
Syncopated Cyril	Teach dance, and try it with the song
I wanted to try this dance, as it was (1) simple, and (2) could potentially provide the foundation for future dances. The carpet isn't long enough to have to lines of students fully on the carpet, and so I had to move desks on both sides of the carpet in order to (barely) make enough room. However, the carpet square pattern made it easier (compared to any other class in previous years) to keep students in lines. I first demoed (with the teacher) walking down the middle in between both lines from one end to the other. I then asked the students what would happen if we kept sending people down from one end to the other - we'd run out of room! And so, I encouraged the students to move towards the front each time someone came down the middle. We also practiced crossing the street and turning around. I had to preface this with the fact that there was no crashing, and space was very tight. Finally, it was time to try the dance. The students actually did pretty well, despite the tight quarters, and despite the fact that I only had my laptop to play the song. (I was carrying my laptop, set at full blast, above my head during the entire song.) There was some line jumping, and not everyone got to go down the middle, but I don't think there were cases where students cut lines enough to go twice. In short, this was a good success - the students had fun, they danced, they crossed the street, and no one pushed others around. I only did this with the first class, as the second class was too chaotic for me to try this out witht them. However, I hope to try this next time with the second class. Normally after a dance, I take the time to talk with the students to go over their experiences, but we ran out of time. I had to end the class with a Well Enough Said.
Donut Song	Review, sing song
Some of the students in the second class asked about doing the donut song one last time, and since I didn't think the class was going to handle Syncopated Cyril, I obliged the class and we did the Donut Song together - first slowly, then quickly. This time, the students remembered to sing "goodbye" at the end.

I've found that because I'm in the classroom only every other week, if I want to extend something (like I did with John Brown's Baby), I sort of have to do it by splitting it at the beginning of class and later in the class. Otherwise, it's a long long delay before getting back to the song, and there's a chance we might not be able to do the extension. I had a *lot* queued up just in case including "Things I Am Thankful For" (for Thanksgiving - I'll get this next time), Austrian Yodeler, Fish/Chips/Vinegar, Tommy Tinker, Deep and Wide, and Old King Glory. With the second class not getting the dance, it seems that I've set up the classes with split lesson plans, similar to last year. I suppose I can do things for the first time in both classes, and then reverse things the following class, so that I don't present material for the first time to the same class every week.

Teaching Notes, 2nd grade, 20120927

Today was my 3rd day with the 2nd graders. This also happened to be the last week of music class before the intersession break. Our next class (taught by the other docent) isn't until November 1st, and so I wanted to try to cover some Halloween material.

Two weeks ago, my 2nd class was a little more difficult to control, and I thought that the reason was because the students were sitting scattered on the carpet rather than in a circle. And so, this time, I wanted to make sure that the students sat primarily in a circle. Here's how it went.

A Rig A Jig Jig	Lead students in with song, and put the students in a circle on the perimeter of the carpet
For the first class, this was pretty easy, as I led the students after they lined up outside to come in. For the second class, I asked the teacher to have the students sit at their desks. I then asked the students to follow me when I tapped their shoulder; I then walked around the room while singing the song, from desk to desk, and invited all of the students to follow me in the line. I didn't spend time at this point trying to teach the song; this was entirely an immersive exercise and a way to get the students back into a circle. But I would return to this later in the class…
In The Fall	Talk about Seasons, sing song
Before we dove into the Halloween material, I asked the students about the weather outside, and the season that we were entering (even though it was actually pretty warm outside). We talked about Autumn, and then I started singing the song. The students had actually covered this song last week with the other docent, and so this became a nice review for them. We quickly sang about the red and yellow leaves, and the crisp and colder air. I then also had them sing about the noisy crows (a stanza not covered last week), which also provided a nice preview into more sinister-sounding songs of Halloween; for "beware", I had the students speak the word in their most low, foreboding voice, because, after all, scarecrows are supposed to be scary.
1-2 Tie My Shoe	Motion the rhyme until the students figure it out
As a change of pace, I decided to keep the students seated, and then I started motioning the rhyme. At first none of the students knew what I was doing, but it was successful in the sense that I managed to get the entire class silent for a brief moment. Eventually some students started figuring it out, and I did the rhyme while speaking the parts. For one class, I used the normal ending ("a big fat hen") even though I was repeating the sequence over and over, but for the second class, I actually signed "do it again" in ASL, which also made things harder for the students to guess. After we ended the spoken version of the sequence for that class, I taught the students that little snippet of ASL, and we did the sequence one more time (twice) in order to have the students try it out.
5 Little Pumpkins	Sing/immerse students into the song
At last, I got a chance to talk with the class about Halloween, and what they were looking forward to seeing. When someone mentioned "pumpkins", we briefly talked about how there were pumpkins being grown right outside the office (really!), and then I immediately sang the song with the hand motions. Many of the students knew the song from a previous class (some from preschool), and so I was able to blaze through this song three times (once via echo) with most of the class singing along with me.
Scary Echo from Ghost of Tom	Have students echo me
Halloween is supposed to be scary, right? Well, after singing 5 little pumpkins, I wanted to make the environment just a little spookier, and so I had the students echo the Oooooooo sequence from Ghost of Tom. This didn't take too long, and it also gave me the chance to talk about major vs. minor, particularly when comparing this echo with the previous song.
Stirring Our Brew	Teach song and motions, play attention game
We chatted more about what to expect during Halloween (particularly scary stuff), and eventually someone mentioned witches. I asked the class what do witches do, and I got the standard answers (broomsticks, cats, spells); when someone mentioned potions/cauldrons, I then had the students pretend they each had a cauldron. One student in each class remembered "Keep The Kettle Boiling" and asked to play that game, but I reminded the students that this was indeed a scary cauldron and we wouldn't want to jump into it. This song is pretty short, and entirely in echo, I had the students sing "Stirring…" while motioning the stirring of a huge cauldron. When it came down to "tip… toe…", I started creeping into the middle, and so did all of the students. When I (moderately loudly) said "boo", a lot of the students happily giggle-screamed. We tried this a second time, but this time I held onto the "boo" until I had everyone's attention, which made the surprise even more enjoyable. We did this a third time, which I ended with a very loud "BOO!" Hopefully the class next door didn't mind too much. :)
Ghost of Tom	Immerse and zipper in names
With the students seated again, I simply started singing this song. With the Ooooooo already covered earlier, this became and easy song for the students to pick up. Neither class had a student named "Tom", and so after the first iteration, I simply added a random student's name. I kept substituting names for a bit; for some, they wanted to be picked; however, there were a few students who didn't appreciate the extra attention. I eventually asked for volunteers (there was an ample supply), and we sang the sequence using a few more willing names. I emphasized singing the last line in a whispery staccato - this made the song even spookier and when I asked the students to compare a legato last line vs. a staccato last line, they most definitely felt that the staccato was creepier.
A Rig A Jig Jig	Immerse in step, and return students to seats
With time running down, I decided to get the students used to stepping to a beat. We actually never had a chance to do this in a circle, and I noticed that the students actually weren't all that used to it. (When walking in, they generally weren't stepping to a beat consistently.) After I got them mostly to step in beat, I started singing the song - some students, particularly those who knew it from a previous class, started singing with me. At this point, I instructed the class (while still stepping) to follow me around the room, and when they passed their own desks, to sit down. Picking up the pace, I started meandering around the desks in the room. It took about 4 (2-stanza) iterations of the song in order to cover all of the ground. By the time everyone was at their desks seated, I ended the song with "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye" in place of the "hi-ho"'s.

In the 2nd class, I actually had a little time to try Old King Glory, but the class was all verklempt from the Ghost of Tom, that teaching it was pretty futile. I would have had to rush it too; I didn't have a huge amount of time left.

Today was also the first time that I had to ask two students (from the 2nd class) to sit outside the circle for being disruptive. On the flip side of things, it took 3 classes to get to that point, which is longer than past years.

I'll be back in about a month, thanks to the intersession break, plus teacher-parent conference week and the tag-team docent setup that we have at the school. In the meantime, have a happy and healthy Halloween!

Teaching Notes, Kindergarten, 20120924

It's Kindergarten time again! This would be my last K class until December, as our school's intersession break is coming up, and the new docent will probably be picking up the classes after the break.

Like last time, I wanted to have the students "march" in with an activity in mind. At first the students trickled in, but then I had them line up again until we had pretty much the entire class in a line; we then proceeded in…

Come And Follow Me	Lead students around the classroom and vary movements
I started this a little higher than I did, and even though I was clearly in falsetto, there were no snickers from the students. Ah, the joys of teaching Kindergarteners. :) The students had a lot of fun with this, and it was surprisingly easy to get them to follow in a circuituous route around the classroom. I made the mistake of walking alongside the carpeted area (my target for a seated circle) and then walking around a desk. That meant that by the time I came back to the carpet, I had formed a circle with the students, but with the desk inside the circle. Rather than keep the students walking around, I simply ended the song ("come and sit right down in your space, in your space"), and I had the few students around the wrong side of the desk simply break the line and come over to the carpet.
Tempo review	Review tempo terms
The previous docent last week introduced tempo terms to the students, and since I always want to try to extend something taught in the previous class, I decided to revisit terms like "tempo", "largo", "andante", "adagio", and "presto". But first, I simply tried getting the students to copy me - first I clapped softly and slowly with my hands near the ground - and then I raised my hands while speeding up the clapping rate until I was clapping very quickly with my hands high in the air. The students followed me pretty effectively here, and once I stopped, I asked the students what differences they noticed with clapping down low vs. clapping up high. Different students noted the speed change, and some noted that I was clapping more loudly up in the air. That eventually led me to talk about speed, and then the Italian tempo terms. I don't think coming from that exercise that all of the students remembered all of the terms, but I think they did understand that "tempo" meant "speed", and speed some somehow relevant in music.
Bee Bee Bumble Bee	Review chant, and then play a game with the chant
Most of the students remembered the chant, and by the time we did it twice, everyone was chanting with me (and also motioning as I tapped, pointed to my knee, pointed to my nose, and then motioned an "out" move). I then wanted to do a little game by passing around a yellow and orange tennis ball that was supposed to represent a bee. I gave the explanation that I didn't want to bring real bee - plenty of the class remarked that they didn't want to be stung; however I could not locate the toy laughing bee that my own child had before I left for class, and so the tennis ball had to do. In retrospect, the tennis ball was actually pretty good; that's a lot of hands (and rolling on the ground) that I don't think my child's toy needs. I had the students keep passing the ball around while we chanted, and when the chant ended, I had the student still carrying to ball to come with me into the middle of the circle. However, to make sure that the student wasn't really out or in some sort of penalty box, I told the student to help me lead the rest of the class while we restarted the chant. The next child who was "out" simply swapped seats with the previous student. The students quickly caught on, and the tennis ball became a bit of a hot potato. I then modified the tapping/pointing into a simple clap-tap-tap-tap pattern, and I asked the students to give the ball to the next student only on a clap - but the students kept trying to pass the ball as quickly as possible. I suppose it was a bit of a stretch, but more importantly, the kids were clearly having fun while still maintaining the chant.
Razzama Tazzama	Immerse students in song and motions
Because I've been teaching mostly older students, I had not used Razzama Tazzama since my first year as an MfM docent. I wanted to see how well students could follow my motions, so I started with two high claps (left, right), followed by two hand stars (left, right). The students seemed just ok following that pattern, so stuck with that pattern during the chorus of Razzama Tazzama. I then proceeded to just dive into the song. The students did well to follow me, and around the 3rd or 4th iteration of the chorus, I could hear a few voices singing along. Of course, the students enjoyed "wally woo-hoo" the most, but they also had a lot of fun with the verses. We got through 5 different verses, and ended with tummy/funny.
Halloween Surprise	Teach song and motions
As this was the last class before Halloween, I felt it was my duty to have a song for that momentous day. Before singing, I had the students to mvoe and chant with me. I also had the students shout loudly "goodbye" at the end of the chant, which of course the students loved.
Halloween Surprise	Teach song and motions
As this was the last class before Halloween, I felt it was my duty to have a song for that momentous day. Before singing, I had the students to mvoe and chant with me. I also had the stduents shout loudly "goodbye" at the end of the chant, which of course the students loved.
Tony Chestnut	Teach motions, then immerse with song
I had just a few minutes left, and so I decided to try Tony Chestnut, yet another song that I haven't done in many years. I first simply had the students point to each body part, and I had to explain that the "nut" was going to be their head. After just walking the students through each motion and saying each body part. Then, I slowly sang the song while having the students simply follow my motions. I didn't really have a good motion for "yes he" (in "yes he knows"), and while I did start motioning the ASL "yes" during that part of the song, I didn't really point out why I was nodding a closed fist. Also, using the version that I was trained in, I clapped during "that's what" (from "that's what Tony knows"). The students predictably had a good time with this one. I went through the song twice, and then warned the students that I'd try it faster - they kept up pretty well. Only a few students were singing something with me by the end of this faster iteration.

I ended the day with Goodbye My Friends, and the students sang along with me.

During the past weekend, we had the MFM Kickoff event, which included the teaching of a very simple dance by the Shenanigans: Syncopated Cyril. I was inspired by its simplicity that I had planned to use it in the middle of today's class. However, upon my arrival to the classroom, I discovered that we had a substitute teacher (albeit a very competent substitute). And so, I decided at the last minute to scrap it. I'm always worried about not having enough things to do, and being ready with alternate plans in the event of a substitute is a good reason why to always overprepare.

I had to use "Show Me" twice in order to recapture the students' attention - once after "Come And Follow Me", and once after "Razzama Tazzama". I used the same words, and while the repetition didn't strike as strange to the students, I do think I need to be ready with other variations - if anything, to keep myself entertained.

Teaching Notes, 2nd Grade, 20120913

It's week 2 for me, but it's week 3 for the 2nd graders, as they had the other docent last week. I am now alternating weeks, and with the year-round schedule, I only have one more class (in two weeks) after this one before the October break.

The original plan was to combine elements from both the first class (which I taught) and last week's class. However, what I ended up doing was a bit different.

Everybody Oughta Know	Lead students in with song, teach song, and solicit ideas for the song
Everybody Oughta Know is pretty much a staple that I teach nearly all of my classes, and while I originally thought about starting the class with "I Had a Chicken" (which I will likely do in two weeks), I did feel like I should introduce this song early if I ever needed to use it as a longish class refocusing tool. The first class again started outside, and so I simply led the class in while I sang the song; after they sat, I had the students echo me each line of the song. The second class started already seated on the mat, and so I led them straight into echoing me. I asked the students to share something "good" that they experienced that day; similar to past years, few students initially wanted to offer ideas, but once I zippered that first idea into the song, I had plenty of volunteers with followup ideas. Just about all of the ideas from the kids were related to sports. Like in past years, during the first day of this song, I don't bother getting the students to sing the 3rd line in unison (rather than echo'ed); I'll get that happen the next time we sing this song.
Name Rhythms	Get students to attach rhythms to each name
This was the exercise from last year's kickoff - for each name, we invent some sort of rhythm/percussion while seated to that name, and we concatenate eventually names in groups of no more than 4 (except for the very end). It seemed to work pretty well, particularly for the first class; students got to giggle at their names being attached to movements, rhythms, or percussion, and I think they had a good time trying to do names grouped together. The second class also started strong, but halfway through the exercise, I found it harder and harder to keep the students' attention, and by the end of the exercise, I barely had half of the class with me. This exercise takes a long long time. With 25-26 students a class, this easily took nearly 20 minutes which didn't leave a lot of time for much more.
Scales/Do A Deer	Review the scale, and sing the song
I asked the class if they knew what a scale was from last week (even though I wasn't their teacher last week), and I was able to get a reasonable answer in both classes. I led the students up the scale, and they sang it well. I also pointed out to the students that the scale starts and ends with the same note, one clearly higher than the other. I then started Do A Deer, and both classes went ahead a started singing the rest of the song without much effort or prompting from me! I had pictures that I used last year of each note printed, and I showed them to the class as they sang, but while it revealed some chuckles, they clearly didn't need it. For the first class, I pointed to the pictures of the notes out of order, and the students sang them ok, enough to show a difference in pitch, but not necessarily in tune. The students, when not guided, tend to go up dramatically in pitch with each rising note. I wonder how low they'd go when starting at Do and going down the scale. For the first class, I had the students stand and go through body solfege signs; for the second class, I totally forgot to do this! And so, I'll have to remember to do it again for both classes.
Doughnut Song	Review song, and teach motions
With the students standing up, I asked the students to copy my motions, and I sang through the songs while gesturing the parts of the song. I purposefully sang this quickly so that the students would follow the motions rather than the words (and also because I was short on time). I ended with the same "Thanks for the doughnut", but fewer than three students per class remembered the last line. And so, that gave me a great excuse to do it again, this time more slowly. The students did appear to be able to remember many of the lyrics this way with the motions, which was good to see. And at the end of the 2nd iteration, plenty students remember to say "Goodbye" loudly.

I realized that both classes, but especially the first, have pretty strict cutoff times. The first class, coming right after lunch, takes a little bit of time for the students to line up; this time, I had the students line up in line order which takes a little longer and burned more time than I had planned. In addition, nametags were handed out outside as well, further eating into class time. Unlike last year, I don't have the flexibility to bleed the class time a little longer than usual. I'll probably have the teacher give out nametags after I lead them into class.

The second class this time did not sit in a circle; they sat scattered on the colored mat, which meant that they were seated quickly. But, I do wonder whether or not the scattered (yet densely populated) seating meant for more chatter, as the class was noisier - so much that I had to wait for students to quiet down at times. I'll insist on leading the students into a circle on the mat; that way, if the students fidget, they can only disrupt the two people to their sides.

I had a lot more prepared for this class that I never managed to get to, including "I Can Sing Up High", "Little Tommy Tinker" with body solfege, and Bee Bee Bumblebee (utilizing the overhead projector), which I had prepared two weeks ago also. I may also try to do "I Had A Little Chicken" the next time I teach.

Teaching Notes, Kindergarten, 20120910

This year, we're spinning up a new docent for one of the Kindergarten classes, but at training hasn't started yet, and so the docent isn't ready to teach yet. Also, that docent will only be able to teach about half of the days, and so myself and another returning docent are going to have some opportunities to teach some K classes for a bit. For the rest of this calendar year, I'll have three (including this class). 

The students already had one session (taught by the other returning docent), and that session covered Hello My Friends in 4 languages, followed by a number of Mandarin songs. I don't really have a repertoire of Mandarin songs (even though the school is a Mandarin immersion school), and so I planned on mostly covering what I'd usually do for the start of the year.

The class starts right after lunch, and so leading them into class with a song was a natural way to start the class. I relied pretty heavily on the set lesson plan for Kindergarteners, which is something I know I shouldn't do too much so that the new docent can use those plans, but I figured I'd try it out just to see how the students would respond.

I Like You	Lead students around the classroom and vary the activity after each phrase
Kindergarteners are small and slower than 2nd graders, and so I had to have a number of the students follow me into the classroom before I started singing so that most could hear. The first iteration has no activity (other than walking), and before I went to the next iteration ("we will clap"), I told the students to clap with me. I then proceeded to jumping, hopping, stomping, walking backwards, and just walking; each time I told the students what was happening next. Walking backwards actually was pretty challenging for the Kindergarteners. By the time I ran out of ideas, there were still had some students that didn't quite make it back to the carpeted mat, and so I had the remaining students shuffle into the circle.
Hello Echo	Introduce myself
This was nothing more than singing in sol-la-sol-mi things like "Hello Boys and Girls, my name is Mr. Chen… can you sing back Hello Mr. Chen?" At first, few students responded after that, and so I encouraged the students to try it again; during the second time, I got a better response. However, not everyone was responding, and so I had the students to go through a warmup with me by standing up, stretching to the sky and stretching voices high. I then had them hang their arms towards their toes while dropping their voices down low. That allowed me to segue to…
I Can Sing Up High	Teach song by echo, and lead the motions/td>
I first just started singing along while stretching, and after going high and low, I asked what was in between. Eventually we converged on "the middle", which allowed me to finish the song. I then asked the students if they knew what an echo was. I received a variety of mostly accurate answers, including a cave-related answer, and so I asked the students to be my cave. We walked through the song in echo a few times, a little faster each time, and finally we sang once together.
Hello in Many Languages	Return to my name, and talk in a few different languages
I asked the students if they remembered my name, and they were mostly successful. At this point, I mentioned that they students would have multiple music teachers during the year, and that they'll get music in different forms, including different languages. Since I was still trying to introduce myself, I offered to the students that even the word "hello" could be spoken in different ways - i.e. languages. I then had the students echo hello in English, Spanish, Mandarin, French, and Swahili. One student really wanted to also contribute hello in Portuguese, which we then shared with the class.
Blow The Balloon (Ella Jenkins)	Tell the story behind the balloon, and have the students sing/act it/td>
I basically copied the song and the story as recorded by Ella Jenkins on one of her CDs. It allowed me to have the students say certain words with me such as "Padma", "India", "Hindi", "Lotus", etc., which aren't words that Kindergarteners might say in everyday K-level conversation. When I had the students "blow the balloon", their reactions, especially when I clapped, were almost exactly like the recording. This was the first time I did this song, and it worked out fantastically. However, I don't think I can re-use the story.
Animal Sounds	Talk about the sounds of animals heard today
I asked the students what sounds they heard during lunchtime, and they immediately gave me sounds from their fellow students - laughing, screaming, etc. While I had the students replicate laughing, I didn't have them replicate screaming. I quickly moved to animals, and we covered the usual things like dogs, birds, etc., and while I didn't overtly make the connection that small means high-pitched, I did consistently ask about whether or not things were small or large before having the students replicate the sounds of the creature. I then moved the students to insects, which included crickets, mosquitoes, and bees. Of course, that was nothing more than a coerced segue to…
Bee Bee Bumble Bee	Get students to chant, follow beat
I told the students that the bee reminded me of a chant, and then I started the chant while keeping beats with my hands and thighs. I then asked the students to be my echo again, and while I didn't ask them to copy my movements, many did! I changed the movements this time so that during the second line, I tapped my knees. During the 3rd line, I kept beat on my nose, and fort the last line, I threw my hands up at the end to signal that someone was "out". The students really caught onto the motions, and it made it easy for me to get the students chant with me.
Thank You and Goodbye	Get students to chant, follow beat
I was just out of time, and so I wanted to have the kids echo me saying "Thank You" in Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Mandarin. I then sang "Goodbye My Friends Goodbye", and knowing that the students had heard "Hello My Friends", I knew that they'd quickly sing along (and they did).

Before and after Blow the Balloon, I also spent time introducing "Show Me" (the 10-second song) as a game for the students, and we did it with different lyrics both times. I encouraged the students to echo me when pointing.

I realize that I didn't really do any activity that had the students mention their own name, which is a bit of a departure from most every other class opener that I taught. Perhaps it was because the students already had a music class. But, no matter, I'll have the students get a chance to introduce themselves to me.

There was another observation that I'd like to note: a few students knew who I was, and some called me "Mr. Erik". It turns out that I had taught some of the Kindergarteners knew me from that one class that I taught at the school's preschool last year. I was impressed by their ability to remember that!

I had also ready The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Razzama Tazzama just in case I ran out of activities.

Teaching Notes (2nd grade), 20120830

…and we're back! This year, I'm now tag-teaming with another docent to teach two 2nd grade classes (really one 1/2 split with mostly 2nd graders, and one pure 2nd grade class). For this first class, both of us came in and taught the class, but in subsequent weeks, we'll alternate. This will mean that I'll probably be blogging about these 2nd graders only once every other week, but I may be also moonlighting as a Kindergarten class teacher, and so you might see some blogs about that class.

Similar to past years, I was hoping to cover many different activities while learning the students' names. However, new somewhat to this year is some subtle differences. The first class (the 1-2 split) starts basically right after lunch, and so the students could line up from the outside, allowing us to walk in. That class also has a hard stop right at the 30 minute mark as 2nd grade math class, which requires the 1st students to leave and other 2nd graders to enter, takes place at that point. The second class is already in session, and so there is no line-up opportunity. That class too also has a 30 minute hard stop so that the teacher can end the day with some final instructions or activity. As you might have guessed, there's no music room - at least for now. The music room is supposed to be attached to the gym, but the gym is still under construction. The music room should be available again in January.

Come and Follow Me	Lead students around the classroom and vary the motions/walk
For the first class, this was easy to start off, as I simply had students follow me into the room; I asked the students to memorize who was in front of them, and asked if they could follow and copy that person. (Of course, they all nodded.) For the second class, all of the students were on the carpeted area of the classroom, and so I started at a corner of the carpet; when I started moving and singing, the other docent fed the line one student at a time. In both classes, I snaked through the room, and wasn't quite able to get all of the students back onto the carpet in a circle (there were too many students still left among the desks), and so I had to end the song earlier than I had hoped, and I asked the remaining students to fill in the circle. The students had a good time with this. After each "this way", I stopped, and the line stopped pretty effectively; I recall really only one instance of someone crashing (and it did not require any teacher intervention). I varied my steps, step height, volume, and the kids followed well. I even turned around and walked backwards at one point, which presented a little challenge to the class as they were trying to copy the person "in front" of them, but it still worked well. One quick observation: 2nd graders are noticeably smaller than 3rd graders; they all fit in a circle pretty well, albeit tightly, especially with two music docents and one classroom teacher in the circles.
Hello in many languages	Introduce the word/phrase in several languages
After introducing myself and the other teacher, I asked the student what "music" meant to them. I received responses ranging from dancing to singing to something close to the definition of "rhythm". I then asked if music had to be in English, and I got many students saying "no". And so, I noted that since today was our first day meeting everyone, we'd practice saying "hello" in various ways - first with variations in English ("hello", "hi", "howdy", etc.), and then in Spanish, Mandarin, Swahili, French, German, Polish, and a few other languages. This was pretty much the same thing that Ella Jenkins did in a recording that I have of her introducing different languages to her students. In keeping with this mini-theme of different ways representing the same thing, and given that the students had just had lunch (even the second class - I stretched the situation there), I asked the students what they had for lunch. As the students were spouting off what they had just consumed earlier, the other docent was preparing four dishes of grains/legumes...
Oats Peas Beans and Barley	Teach song, with props in hand/td>
The four dishes contained (in order) Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley. The other docent led this exercise, and initially passed around the dishes for all of the students to see and observe. Many of them took their time sniffing the contents. (Oats, apparently, smells better than dried beans or barley.) The students were initially immersed into the first stanza of the song, and then they were taught both the first and second stanzas by echo. A few students recalled the song from last year, but for most, it seemed like they didn't recall enough of the song from last year to be able to sing it without help. In order to transition to the next exercise, I asked the students about the last line, where the farmer was surveying his land - I asked the students why a farmer had to stand high to see the land. After talking a bit about high-growing crops, planted from the oats, peas, beans, and barley, I then had the students stand up, pretend they were surveying the land…
Keep The Kettle Boiling	Teach game/td>
I started this by simply telling the students, "let's play a game" - and I had the students imagine that they were boiling something in a big kettle. (Note: this may come in useful around Halloween when the witches are out brewing goo in their kettles.) This meant that I had to ask the students what a kettle was, and I had them motion as if they were stirring something with a big kettle. I then had them imagine that they had a huge kettle, big enough to fit the whole carpet, which meant that we needed something bigger than a spoon to stir the pot - we needed ourselves! I had them do a body shake (which they'd end up doing during the chant), and then I jumped into the pot. I had them practice with me reciting "in jumps…" - which also forced them to get used to saying my name. Next, I led them through the main chant, at which time I jumped out while chanting "out jumps…" Then, I had the student to my left jump in, and off we went! I deliberately took a lot of time framing this exercise, and I think it paid off well, as the students understood once the second student jumped in. After 6 students or so, I stopped the class and told the students that they had to not only watch the students, but they had to watch and listen to me - multitasking for the 2nd grade world! And then, I started changing tempo, pitch, volume, all to the students' delight. Near the end, in the 2nd class, I found myself out of ideas, and so I tried doing the chant on one foot, and most of the students followed. I had enough time to switch feet for the last two students. Anyhow, this was a blast. The kids had a ton of fun.
The Doughnut Song	Sing, and teach the ending/td>
I told the class that it was nearly time to go (and indeed it was), and so I had them practice singing (not saying) "goodbye" (ti-do) a few times. I then had them do it after I clapped, which they did successfully on the 2nd try. I then told the students to wait for me to clap - I started singing the song. I really like this particular song as a class-ender, since the students don't have to do much other than listen for most of the song. After singing the first half, I asked the students "what is a 5-cent piece?" To my mild surprise, I didn't get an immediate answer, but eventually someone fessed up that it was a nickel. I then proceeded to sing the rest of the song, ending with "Thanks for the doughnut" and a clap. Most of the first class remembered and shouted (not sung) "Goodbye", but few students in the 2nd class remembered; in that class, I asked if the students could try again, and the second time around (through the whole song), they did.

During the second class, I tried out two short attention-grabber techniques - an easy echo clap before Keep The Kettle Boiling, and a "Where are we/right here/right now?/right now" call and answer before the Doughnut Song. I plan on trying to experiment more with these short exercises and use them later in the year.

This was a very successful first day, I must say. The students in both classes were well behaved - better than I had anticipated, and I think significantly better than past years at this school. I never had to stop and pull a student out, and that was wonderfully refreshing. I'm definitely looking forward to the next class, even if it is two weeks away.

Teaching Notes, 20120614

Today was the last class for this school year, and I decided to make it pretty much a relaxing class, without asking the students to do too much. Similar to past years, I'm writing this several weeks after the class actually took place,

Spring Sing Video	Watch video
Once I had the students' attention, we watched a video recording of the spring sing, which amounted to about 9 minutes of video. While watching, the students chatted, laughed, and still sang along. It was fun to watch them watch themselves. There were times when I pointed out something interesting (especially during the split parts of Do Re Mi), but for the most part I let the students enjoy the moment.
Piano Keys and Scale Theory	Go over the piano keys and step spacing in a scale
I never really spent much time talking about the piano and its keys, even though there always were some students asking about it, and so I decided to just do a quick intro of the keys. Using a 8.5 x 11 sheet with a scale's worth of piano keys printed, I talked about the keys, both white and black, on the keyboard. I played a C scale and quickly noted that I was playing only the white keys. I then played the black keys, and then a chromatic scale. Next, I talked about steps, and how in most cases two consecutive white keys were whole steps, and if there was a black key in between then the white-to-black step was a half step. However, I then clarified that actually one key to the next closest key, whatever that might be, was always a half step, which meant than a C scale using all white keys also included a few white steps. I then had the students chart out the step pattern for a major scale: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. That, I offered the students, was the required patten for any minor scale. I then played them the A (natural) minor, also using only the white keys, and then that yielded a different pattern: whole, half, whole whole, half, whole whole. I then told them that just altering the positions of the half steps could really make a big difference in how a scale sounds.
Rainforest Chant (2nd class)	Revisit chant, record/td>
I tried to do the Rainforest chant-and-record exercise that I did with the first class, but this time, I practiced beforehand working with Audacity so that I didn't find myself fumbling with the controls during the middle of class. This time around, it was a little more successful, with students being convinced that they were hearing patterns that were different from the sung pattern, even if the students couldn't concretely describe the difference.
Yesh Tanu Laish (1st class)	Teach dance outside/td>
Similar to the previous week, I had the students of the 1st class try the dance outside of the music room. They actually did pretty well, even though I tried teaching the class with all of the students from the very beginning. I think we went through the song 3 different times, this time using a faster recording each subsequent time. Despite past grumblings during the year about dancing, the students seemed quite eager to try out this dance.
Sing A Song	Teach, have a few students sing a solo/td>
Every year that I've taught, I ended the year with Sing A Song. I had written out most of the lyrics that weren't echoed on the board, and so I simply taught by asking the class to echo me. When we got to the parts that didn't require an echo, we echoed them anyway the first time through, but subsequent times, I simply gestured and slowed down the song for everyone to sing. When the students were comfortable with the song, I invited three students to come up and sing the 2nd to last line ("Don't worry…") as a solo - which they did splendidly. To my surprise, few students knew this song.

This year was a successful year. These students hadn't had any significant regular music class, and I hope that they came away with a bit of a foundation to build from in later years. We touched on the math/theory parts of music as well, which I hope helps them as they grow as students. And, if anything, if the students every so often find the occasion to sing a song every once in a while, then I'd feel comfortable thinking that they were inspired by what they experienced during the year. See you in a few weeks.