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.