Teaching Notes, 20120112

I am super excited - not only is it the start of a new calendar year, and not only have I been away from teaching for 3 weeks, I get to use the same lesson plan for both classes!

Today is also the only class before MLK Day, so I knew I had to do some activity that marked the holiday. I also wanted to accelerate the class towards some form of music literacy, and so I had laid out 5 long black ropes representing a staff in the middle of the room. Here's what happened…

Trisch Trasck Polka	Lead class with the song in the background
The school is going through a capital improvement program, and so construction fences consume much of the space outside the door leading to the music room. Thus, I wanted to get the kids into the room as quickly as I could, and so I led the students with the song in the background. I asked the students to copy whatever the person was doing, and so I started moving to the music in different ways as I led the students in. I normally don't do this with 3rd graders, as most find dancing like this a bit silly, and unsurprisingly, students did more snickering than dancing, although they did keep walking. Plus, the music room, because of the construction and shuffling of school furniture, is more cluttered now than before, leaving less room for moving in a circle. And so, I had to stop the music before it ended, and before the students started to blow up the staff that I had laid out. After the music started, we did talk just a little about the music, and some students remarked that they had heard the music in cartoons. It's a little unfortunate that cartoons would be the only supply of classical music to students' ears these days, but I guess that also the case for a lot of my friends when I was a small kid.
Life Sized Staff	Introduce staff, where notes go, and introduce the lettered scale
With the five black lines on the ground, we talked about how music writers need lines, just like if one were writing an essay on lined paper. After talking about how note go on either spaces or lines, I asked the students which way was up. Of course, half of the class felt that the other side of the class was upside-down or facing the wrong way, and so that allowed me to point out that there had to be a system to tell which way was up: the positioning of the clef symbol. I had a pre-drawn giant clef on a sheet of presentation paper which I then unrolled and laid on the ground. I mentioned that the center of the clef's little circle was supposed to go around the 2nd string, whose name was "G"; I told the class that if they had to remember where the clef went, all they'd have to ask themselves was, "G, where does the clef go?" (That was a silly trick from Chris Burke - thanks, Chris!) With clef in place, we then started walking up the scale in solfege, starting with an arbitrary Do at E. I then put a student at the E, and then proceeded to add 4 more students for the next 4 notes going up the scale. When each student stood on the staff, I had the rest of the class tell me what the next note was. (Amusingly, I managed to pick all kids whose name started with M during the 1st class.) Keeping the Do student on the staff and letting the rest sit down again, I proceeded to walk up the scale (with the class reciting the notes as I walked) until I got up to the upper Do, and at that point, I made sure the students noticed that consecutive Dos, or any octave, meant that one note was in a space and one note was in a line. Next, I asked the class if people sang more than the 11 notes (5 lines, 6 spaces including the ones immediately below and above the staff) that a staff offered. Clearly, the answer was no, and so I informed the class that if you needed to go off staff, then you had to bring your own lines with you. Also predrawn on large presentation paper was a giant whole note with a line through it, and I brought that out to illustrate the first line note above, and then below the staff. having the class tell me the upper note was easy. It was harder for the class to tell me the name of the note when I put it under the staff, under the starting Do pitch at E. I then had the students look up at the board; I wasn't done with the staff yet, however. I drew a staff on the board, and on it, I put a stemless note in the horizontal middle, vertically in line with the clef's little circle: G. I told the students to call this note "G". I then had the students walk down the scale as I drew notes to the left of G, going down until we went down to C. I then tried to convince the students that that C was actually really special: middle C, which is particularly special on a piano. (I marked middle C on the music room's piano keys with blue painter's tape.) I mentioned that a lot of people like to equate C with Do, which is more out of convenience and habit, rather than any real reasoning, but I also noted in the 2nd class that the teacher tended to do the same, especially when we sang Do-Re-Mi. Going back to the board, I walked the students up the scale again using C as Do, and I wrote in the remaining La, Ti, Do at the top of the scale. I then asked how many different note names there were, and the class answered correctly 7. I pointed out the two Do's on the scale, and noted that both were in fact also C. Working backwards from the upper C, we filled in two more letter note names: B and A. At this point, I asked them how many different letters they saw (7 again), and at that point, I pointed out that in music, we only had 7 letters, just like the Solfege scale. I got some satisfying oooohs at that point.
How Do You Dootee	Introduce Tone Bells, play JB
I quickly removed the ropes, and I asked the students if anyone went anywhere during the break. Some students started talking about Tahoe and other parts of California. I then asked if anyone went overseas. (One student said that he went to Tonga!) I then talked about Australia (one of my favorite places to visit), and how people from Australia spoke English, but differently than we did. I proceeded to go through the verses of HDYD, one at a time, and when we came across the 2nd verse ("… or have you shifted away"), we talked about what that phrase might mean. (The students figured it out quickly.) I had the students chant it in echo twice through, and then I had them try to chant it with me twice, the second time a little faster than the first. Next, it was time to introduce the task of finding a new place in the circle during the 4th verse. After reminding the students not to run or make contact with others, even if it means finding new places near their current ones around the circle, we all recited the chant much more slowly, to allow the students more time to find a spot during that last verse. We were able to do this about 4 or 5 times, each time getting faster, before it started getting too chaotic (and therefore time to move on). This was very similar to how I've introduced How Do You Dootee, and it always is a lot of fun.
We Shall Not Be Moved	Teach song, zipper into it
With MLK Day the following Monday, and with a field trip consuming next week's class time, this was really my only chance to do something that was MLK-relevant close to the holiday. I used this song last year, and it was one of the more popular tunes that year, and so it was a no-brainer to bring it back for this year. I spent a little bit of time talking about MLK, what his goals were, and the struggles that he and his consitutents faced. I also talked about the freedom bus rides, to which the song (that I was about to introduce) was relevant. After trying to describe what it would have been like sitting on a bus with a lot of angry people trying to move you away, I simply started singing We Shall Not Be Moved (in Dan Zanes' style) with my ukulele. After singing a few verses, I asked the students about the good things that they did, and I simply zippered them into the 1st and 3rd lines of the song. I then encouraged the students to fill in with the rest of the song. For my first class, I tried to teach the song entirely by rote, and it was actually pretty difficult to get the students to sing with me; they barely got past the echo stage. And so, for my second class, I prewrote the lyrics on the board, which was astoundingly more effective at teaching the song, thus freeing students' brains to zipper away. I'm debating about bringing the song back during the next class (in two weeks), when MLK Day might still be fresh in the kids' minds.

I had prewritten on the board the winter lyrics to Seasons (California version - substituting rain for snow). At this point, I had run out of time to really do another activity that took significant time, but I did have the students read aloud in unison the lyrics. Some, by the 3rd line, starting singing the song, but clearly everyone found the lyrics to be familiar. I then asked the class what was wrong with the lyrics, and eventually someone noted that it wasn't raining outside, and indeed, it hadn't rained for about a month. Knowing that a large storm was on its way (and that I had had two weeks until the next class), I promised the class that it would indeed rain before the next time that I saw them. None believed me.

I had also in my back pocket the Austrian Yodeler, which I'll save for next week.

Teaching Notes, 20111215 (1st class only)

Today was the very last class before the end of the calendar year, and so I wanted to do as much as I could, and do something that was still holiday-related. At risking of overloading the students with jingling bells, I decided to do Jingle Bells one more time. I was going to pull out instruments again, and so I had the students sitting in two lines again.

Down by the Sea	Have students enter the room with the song playing, and have them follow me in motions
The students rushed into the room quickly, and before I started the music, we talked about how we were close to vacation time. I asked the students if any of them were going to somewhere warm, which allowed me to talk about what it would be like to be at a warm beach. Unfortunately, the students weren't really focused much, and the teacher had to be out of the room to address an issue with a few of her students. While we were talking about vacation, I had another incident with three other students, and I had to exchange those students with those already being talked to. I reviewed motions related to swimming, riding a raft, and being hot in the sun, and I turned the music on. Barely after going through one iteration of the song, however, some students (perhaps some part of the original group being talked to by the teacher) were becoming far more rowdy and certainly weren't staying in place. I typically expect some lateral movement during this song, but I felt that they were more trying to bring attention to themselves, and so I sent three students to the office. I had questioned myself later if I had a quick trigger, especially when two of the three apology notes written by the students stated that they didn't know why they were sent. It's true that I didn't really give them a warning, but even so, the whole class really was a lot more focused for the rest of the day, even when the three students sent to the office returned. I never stopped the music, and we finished the song exercise reasonably well, even with the break when everyone's tired.
Hello My Friends Hello	Review song, add German
With the students already in place, I quickly had the students start the song. I had the lyrics printed on paper above the whiteboard, including both Korean and its English transliteration. Then, I had the students recite the German version ("Hallo meine Freunde"), and before we practiced singing, I noted how in German, all nouns were capitalized. I also took this opportunity to review the coda sign, and what it meant to this song. However, when we sang the coda few students followed me and it took getting to Chinese before a majority of the kids were singing along.
March of the Toy Soldiers	Revisit the song, and determine form of the song
This was an exercise that (1) takes a lot of time, and (2) really works well, and so this was my only time to do this with the class. I had the song split into three parts - one for each form of the song (happy, serious, worried), and after playing one form, I had the students talk about how they felt after hearing the music. I got a lot of answers, but they all mostly revolved around marching, being generally happy, and confident. The second part elicited words such as serious, angry, low. The third form yielded words such as frightened, chasing, running. I then had three students come up to represent the three forms (I had to turn one away so that I had three students with three different first initials), and then we started listening to the song. The students were asked to say whose "form" was currently playing. The students had a really fun time shouting out their friends' names in the process. We then removed duplicates in the written pattern, yielding the ABACABA pattern/form. I had to do a quick translation from students' first letters in names to A-B-C, and in the future, I should probably just choose students whose names already fit those letters.
Tone Bells	Introduce tone bells
Given that I wanted to revisit a song involving bells, it seemed appropriate to introduce tone bells to the group. I first held up a tone bell and showed the class how to play it. Unlike other instruments, I sort of passed by the fact that tone bells aren't played more than in one way (although I guess one could play it by keeping the mallet in contact with the chime, which would result in a dampened note). We talked about the resonating chamber in the bell, and its importance in letting the sound ring. I then brought up three students to play bells. I wanted to pick students that were giving me the least trouble, and it turned out to be 3 girls. I then had them each hold a bell, and I had them individually play them. The bells formed a C-chord, and the students oohed and aahed when they realized that the bells were playing different notes. It didn't take long for students to point out that the smaller bells were playing higher notes. Yay. We proceeded to practice trying to play together, first visually by having them watch for my hand to go down and cross my other hand (not very effective), and then with a verbal 4-count (much more effective). I guess I'll be scrapping the moving-arm method for the future with this class. I then proceeded to get two other sets of three students trained, one playing an F chord (all boys), one playing a G chord (a mix). After a bit of practice, I aligned the F chord group closer to the front door (hence "F"), and the G chord group closer to the window (where there was a Green window dressing). The C chord group was left in the center. I actually gave them the names F, C, and G, but I didn't tell them about their relation with the standard scale. Next, I had the students sit down and face front, and we practiced playing only when I pointed to a certain group, although each point was preceded by a vocal count ("2, 3, 4"). When the students got reasonably comfortable playing on demand…
Jingle Bells	Play with tone bells
And yes, we played Jingle Bells, starting with the stanza. I kept the bell pace at once (on the 1st beat) per measure. The non-bell players picked up the singing pretty quickly, even when I fumbled some of the words while trying to conduct the instrumentalists. When it came time to play/sing the chorus, I had the bell players play on the 1st and 3rd beat of each measure, which surprised the C group a bit at first, but they quickly got the idea that they (and the rest of the players) were on the hook for playing twice as frequently. This being the last day of music class before the break, and given that I had no second class this day, allowed the teacher and I more time, and so we managed to do a swap of students for the bell players. That meant, with the 3 people who were up during the March of the Toy Soldiers, I was able to have 21 of 24ish students do something special. Not bad for not originally intending to spread the goodness so well.
Rattling Can	Immerse students into the song
With the extra time, I also decided to give the students a treat with the Rattling Can. I had the students echo the chorus with me twice, and then I just got on with the song. By the 3rd iteration, I had a few students sing or dance (in their seats) to the chorus, which I thought was pretty good. By the time I got to asking about what made up bubbles, the students grasped the gist of the song, and we were able to take the song to bubbles to air to gas to oxygen to molecules to atoms to protons. I then asked if the students knew what made up protons, and while I got a lot of interesting answers, we ended up stopping the song there (after singing the chorus two more times.

I had the students end the day with Goodbye my friends Goodbye, while stepping to the rhythm, which gave a nice way to end the day.

This was probably the best class I've had with this particular group of students, and undoubtedly it was helped by having the extra time. I felt I didn't have to rush concepts, and I could cover as much of something that I wanted to until I could sense the edge of staleness from the students. Great fun.

Teaching Notes, 20111212 (2nd class only)

Today's class would be the first class I would have conducted while being filmed. Music for Minors had asked to film my class for a promotional video that would likely end up on the MfM website, and so I figured, why not. In doing so, I decided to do a lot more preparation than usual, including writing up two pages of rhythm charts for both halves of Jingle Bells. I also had the two lines that I had taped to the floor retaped with 4 different colors so that I could split the class easily into quarters if I had to.

Hello My Friends	Lead class singing, introduce German
Knowing that the class knew that they were in going to be filmed, I this time tried to get the students to sing along with me as they walked in, and it finally worked! We sang through 3 iterations (English, French, Swahili) by the time I had all of the students seated. A few times, I altered the starting pitch one step higher or lower in between languages starting with Swahili, which added a different flavor to the song. I also had all of the lyrics pre-printed beforehand (including an English transliteration of the Korean version), which helped immensely. After singing Korean, I then revealed the next language - German, and we practiced saying it. I also briefly went on a tangent, noting to the students that nouns in German were capitalized. We sang the German version once through, and then I asked the students if they remembered the coda. Some did, and so we sang through German and tried to march back up the language ladder. However, I lost most of the class when trying to sing Korean, and so I had to go over the coda for this particular song. Eventually, we finished the song up successfully.
Rhythm Charts	Have students read rhythms off of a chart
I had the premade rhythm chart for the Stanza of Jingle Bells out, and I had the students practice some of the patterns by clapping with me. Initially it was just a group of quarter notes and quarter rests. When it came to playing a held note (akin to a shaken tambourine), I realized that the students didn't have a good way of playing such a note, so I had them rub their hands, which didn't produce a whole lot of sound. During this time, I discovered that my marker use wasn't wide or dark enough; from the back of the room, students had a hard time seeing the notations. After trying a few measures of the Stanza, I came to a dreaded conclusion - I had charted out the rhythm as if beats were more than 120 bpm! In short, the meter was twice as fast as it needed to be, and so it became a bit comical trying to get the students to play rhythms with such a short countoff. Darn! I had to simply move onto the next exercise; I never really had the students play the entire chart.
Jingle Tone Bells	Introduce Tone Bells, play JB
And so, I moved onto Tone Bells. I had 3 students come up, and after giving one of them a tone bell, I realized I didn't really properly introduce the instrument to the class. I then awkardly ended up talking about the tone bell, and playing it for them, as a hurried way to familiarize the class with the tone bells. The three students then had to practice playing together; at first I had them try to play while watching my hands fall together, but that wasn't as effective as simply counting off. This group of three students had bells that formed a C chord. I then called up three more students, and I gave them bells that made them sound like a G chord. Similar to the first group, we practiced playing together. I then called up three more students, gave them bells forming a F chord, and we practiced the group playing together a few times. I then named the groups C for Center, F for Front (of the room), and G for Green (awning over the windows). I thought that that was really nifty, although since the students haven't been taught the letter names of notes, I didn't go into the real reason I chose those letters. I then tried to get the students to practice playing together, but only when I pointed to them. I proceeded to have various groups play on the downbeat of each 4 beat measure (again. we didn't really go into what comprises a measure), but after a while, I could tell that the students were getting restless. So, I had all of the remaining students sit closer by the front tape line, and I instructed them to sing along if they knew what song I was going to sing. I proceeded to "conduct" the three tone bell groups while I sang the stanza to Jingle Bells. Many students caught on quickly. I kept having the groups play only on that first beat of every measure, but by the time it was time to play/sing the chorus, I then had the tone bell groups play twice as frequently, which only caused some minor disturbannces for the first few tone bell strikes into the chorus. After doing this twice, I had the students exit the class with Goodbye My Friends with a rhythm stomp.

I had spent a decent amount of time preparing the rhythm charts for both halves of Jingle Bells, and yet I hardly used them. I'll have to introduce charts again, although I probably have to get the students to understand eighth notes before I can introduce a song that rhythmically would be interesting enough to keep children's attentions. Anyhow, it was good that we were able to finish the day with a good singalong of Jingle Bells - good for both me and my students, and good for Music for Minors too.

I actually had a lot more planned, including How Do You Dootee and the Austrian Yodeler, but alas we didn't get to them. I'll just have to make a point to using those songs again.

Teaching Notes, 20111208 (2nd class)

There were only two more classes before the break for this group of students, and so I wanted to do more holiday stuff with them.

I had the students in two lines again; this seating arrangement seems to be working well.

March of the Toy Soldiers	Examine and recognize forms of the march
With the march playing in the background, I had the students quickly walk into the room and find a seat. Students commented that they knew that the song was from The Nutcracker. I then stopped the song once the students were settled, and we talked about the fact that music has a lot of patterns. I then proceeded to play the first pattern, and after playing it, I asked the students to tell me how they felt. Some noted that they felt happy, while others felt like they needed to be marching. I then played the second pattern, which led to students saying that they felt more angry or serious. I then had them describe how the two were different, and at some point students noted that the first version was definitely happier and higher, while the second pattern was lower and more serious. I then played the third pattern, which elicited a lot of surprise from the students - they noted it was faster, more hurried, and made them either nervous, scared, or feeling like they were being chased. I had three students come up, and I assigned each of the three students one of the forms. I then proceeded to play the whole march, and I asked the rest of the students whose musical pattern was currently playing. As the students shouted names, I wrote the first initial on the board, thus eventually forming the form of the song by the time the march had ended. I converted the three patterns to A-B-C, and that led to the duplicate-reduced pattern of ABACABA. Now, ABACABA is a bit complex, so I asked students to think about the forms of songs that we had sung before, such as "Hello World" (ABA), and "Jingle Bells (AB) and even Sarasponda (AAB).
I Think You're Wonderful	Try to sing the song with a split "new" (3rd line of chorus)
Knowing that the students were reasonably familiar with ITYW, I quickly had the students sing the song with me. Unsatisified with the way they were singing it (they were mostly disinterested), I had them echo the chorus with me, one line at a time, which perked the students up. I had pre-written the third line on the board ("It makes me want to say the same thing to somebody new"), and I after having them repeat just that one line with me, I had them describe the relative pitch of each syllable while I wrote a corresponding pitch graph (keeping steps and larger jumps in mind). Focusing on the last syllable, where "new" drops, I then asked the students what would happen if we changed it so that "new" went up. Of course a few students decided to try to sing "new" super-high, and so I refined my criteria - what would happen if "new" was just a tiny step higher. I then split the class into two, with one group in front taking "new" in the original direction (down), and the back line taking "new" in the new direction (up). I practiced with each group a few times, and then we tried singing it together. Unfortunately, it didn't sound very good, and most students did not remember how little to go up (or down). I wonder if this exercise would have been easier had I split the group left and right instead of front and back; a left/right split would have meant that the students singing the same note would have been closer together. Hrm.
Blocks, sticks, and rhythms	Introduce sand blocks, and do more rhythm patterns
I wanted to introduce sand blocks like I did with the other class, and so I passed out the blocks to the front row, and I quickly passed out sticks to the back row. We spent some time talking about how to play the two instruments in two different ways, and then I had them copy me in a few simple rhythms. I wanted to have the students play rhythms with rests in them, so I had to introduce the rest symbol and talk about what we should be doing during a rest. We practiced then written rhythms composed of quarter notes and quarter rests, and that actually took a lot longer than I expected before the students mostly felt comfortable doing nothing during a written rest. I then had the students play to simple rhythms (such as |_|| |_|| |||| |___), which ended up consuming the majority of the remaining time! We practiced a bit more, but we didn't match the rhythm to any song. (It was going to be the stanza of Jingle Bells.) With the few remaining minutes, I then stopped the class, and we talked about the special part of next week's class - how we were going to be filmed for a video for Music for Minors. We finished the class with a quick rendition of Goodbye My Friends, and the students quickly scooted out of the room.

Indeed, next week's class is going to be filmed for a promotional video for MfM. For the first time, I'll probably write up some rhythm charts on paper. We'll see how that goes.

Teaching Notes, 20111208 (1st class)

Last week's class with instruments worked so well. so I wanted to keep working on instruments. I still did want to try to catch the students up with the other class, and so I tried to sneak in some extra activites today. I had the students again in two lines, but this time, I laid down blue painter's tape to mark the lines rather than use the old rope that I've used for the past year and a half (which seems to be more a distraction these days).

March of the Toy Soldiers	Have students listen while entering the classroom
I had the students walk into the room to the March of the Toy Soldiers (from The Nutcracker), and a few students recognized it. I didn't have any actiivty associated with the song ready for the children, but we did talk about the various instruments that the students heard during the song. I'll end up repeating the song the next week.

Hello World	Revisit the stanza of the song
Similar to previous weeks, I was strumming away at my guitar while getting the students to line up. This year, I have been particularly unsuccessful at having students sing while they are walking in. I had prewritten the lyrics in red and blue, with alternating lines, and after singing through the chorus once, I had the students sing the stanza via echo once through. We then sang through the stanza together, followed by an iteration of the chorus. Finally, I had the students echo the stanza with the front line reading the odd lines and the back line reading the even lines. We practiced this twice, followed by a singing of the chorus. During the last sung chorus, I sped up the singing, and the students happily followed. During this exercise, I realize that it would have been preferable to have lines also split left and right, rather than just front and back, or to have tape lines that were colored like the words.
Jingle Bells w/ other instruments	Add sand blocks, rhythm sticks
I felt that instruments during the previous class went so well that I'd try adding more instruments this time. I ended up trying to add sand blocks and rhythm sticks (not exactly a new instrument, but this time I made sure that each student received one rippled and one smooth stick). We talked about how to play instruments in at least two different ways. The front line received blocks while the back line received sticks. Before we started to play parts, I introduced the concept of the rest, and we practiced a bit trying to play different combinations of 4-beat measures with either quarter notes or quarter rests. We also talked about having 4 beats in a typical measure, with each beat representing a quarter of the measure. The concept of 4 appearing in music proliferously is something I do plan to emphasize over the course of the year. We spent more time than I expected practicing quarters and rests, and eventually I tried a rhythm that I thought would work well with the stanza of Jingle Bells, which was basically |_|| |_|| |_|| |_|| |_|| |_|| |||| |___ twice. However, it turned out that the rhythm was a bit too complex, particularly when I tried to have the students sing this. I actually had hoped to introduce cymbals and a triangle as well, but the blocks and sticks were plenty for the students. Adding to the difficulty was that the students had a harder than usual time trying to focus on the instruments, and as we had run out of time before we could run through the entire song, I had to end the exercise prematurely, as I asked the class to focus better the next time.

In retrospect, even though instruments went so well last week, I probably shouldn't have brought them back during the very next week. Perhaps the students didn't find them so novel anymore after seeing them during the previous week.