| You'll Sing A Song, and I'll Sing A Song | Lead class while singing the song |
I recently downloaded a Ella Jenkins CD, and this song seemed like to be a pretty easy song, and so I decided to just try the song to see if the students could pick it up. It took three iterations of the (very short) song to get the kids fully into the room into the two lines, and I used 3 of the 4 variations ("sing a song", "play a tune", "hum a line") up. However, after everyone was in, I asked the students to "just sing along", and so I re-used the same 3 variations, while eventually throwing in "whistle high" at the end. About 1/3 of the students got the tune and pattern right away after I asked them to sing, and by the 4th variation, I pretty much had all the kids who wanted to sing, singing. I felt that this was also a pretty appropriate song; it was winter, and it was warm outside. | |
| Do Re Mi | Review hand signs, introduce body signs |
I did a quick review of the scale with signs, including a short question of what the sung pitches were going as we moved up the scale. I then took them down the scale and reminded the students that each consecutive note was indeed higher (or lower) but not excessively so. One of the things that I picked up at the last MfM workshop was the full-body solfege signs. So, after we reviewed the regular hand signs, I stood on the piano bench so that all could see me, and I had the students stand up and mimic my movements while I sang the scale. The students seemed to do a lot better with the whole body signs than they originally did with the hand signs; it's a lot more dramatic and requires more deliberate movement. This was also a nice segue into my next song… | |
| Tommy Tinker | Teach song w/ body solfege signs |
I had the students echo me line by line while I did the movements, and the students picked this up pretty quickly. So quickly, that I felt it was ok to start varying the tempo, and I managed to get the students moving and singing pretty quickly. We also tried singing only the Solfege note names to the tune while doing the body signs. Ultimately I wanted to do a round with this song with the students, but clearly not the same day that they learned the song. They'll clearly be ready the next time I have them sing this. | |
| Paw Paw Patch | Teach the dance outside! |
Before we went outside, I sang the first line of the Paw Paw Patch, substituting the name of the student closest to the back door leading (eventually) to the outside. I sang the line twice, and when the students started chatting that the student being sung about was right in front of me, I told the stduent to follow me as I quickly walked through the back door while singing the 2nd verse. As the students poured outside (rather excitedly), I had to re-form the two lines. I set out two groundrules: no crashing, and students had to stay in order. I then proceeded to teach the activity. This particular activity takes a lot of patience on the part of the students, as initially there isn't a whole lot to do for the majority of the students, particularly the line that doesn't involve the student who was the focus of the song at the time. During the 2nd verse practice I had to have one student sit out as he crashed pretty blatantly into the kid in front of him. By the time we had to do the third line, I had the leads of the two lines practice making the bridge, and when we attempted the 3rd line (with the "peeling of the banana"), I had to really help out making sure that the two leads reached the back of the hopscotch squares so that they could make a good but quick bridge. Eventually the students started to understand what was going on, and I do think it helped that only a few students initially were moving around for the earlier parts of the song. We talked about what changed (e.g. who's in front was now different), and so that really got the students excited. I changed the name and started singing again, leading the new leader of the same line around; the students behind the new leader followed immediately, so we had to review the three stages of the song. We proceeded to do this a few times before I switched over to having the other line be the one that had the moving leader. I probably got through 2/3rds of the two lines (really only 1/3 of the class got to be a leader), when I decided to add a little twist: I had, at phase 2, the nonleader line follow the leader. That sort of led to a lot of confusion, and well, that effectively ended the activity outside. But, I still thought that we were able to get the dance done reasonably well, and later we'll extend this a bit or introduce similar dances that involve lines. Yay! There was one little twist to this exercise, though - I only did this with the first class. Next week, before the next class, Valentine's Day would take place, and I wanted to get something Valentine's Day-related in… | |
| Heel Toe, Down the Line | Teach the dance outside! |
For the second class, I tried teaching them this particular song since it was relevant to Valentine's Day. However, this didn't turn out quite so well. I still sang Paw Paw Patch while leading the students outside, and that was fine, but this particular class didn't seem as focused. There was also a substitute teacher for the class that day, and that usually means more squirmy kids. The outside area also had pre-painted concentric large circles, which would have been perfect for this activity. I had the students stand in between two circles - it seemed reasonable, although I had momentarily forgotten that the song includes stomping on a line, which meant that the students had to move inwards. I taught them how to say "Ya" and "Nein", which I needed for the song, and while the students understood the two words, I didn't really give them a good reason why we were learning how to say Yes and No in German. I then proceeded to teach the movements; for the part of "would you be my valentine", I had them turn around in place, as I didn't have the students paired up yet. That's when things got funny. The students for the most part had no desire to be paired up in dancing, and particularly so for a Valentine's dance. Even when I convinced them that there was really no need to have to hold hands, students squirmed, chatted, and really were not into the activity. I never really got a pair of students to demo a dance together at all, and so rather than try to force down the original plan, I just had the students come back inside. While we were inside, we talked about why we were back so soon, and students did acknowledge that they weren't really paying much attention. | |
| Union Team | Teach chant to 2nd class |
I had a little extra time with the second class, and since we talked about the effect of how one disruptive person could have on the class, I made a nice transition to talking about a team chant for the class, just like I did for the other class during the previous week. It could be that the students were still tired from the failed dance attempt, but the second class didn't seem to take to the chant as enthusiastically as the other class. I even tried writing the chant responses on the board, but that didn't seem to help. I'll try it again next week. For the first class, I have the students do the chant just as a transition to the last activity… | |
| Thank You in many languages | Teach chant, add room number |
Another pickup from the Ella Jenkins CD was a track where Ella Jenkins says "Thank You" in many different languages. The first class did well, so it was very easy to say thank you, and I had the students guess what languages I used (Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish, Swahili, Mandarin). For the second class, I had the students guess what I was saying, which they eventually did whenI got to French. In all, it was a nice, calm way to end the day. | |
If it is dry again for the next class, I'll be trying the dances again - Heel/Toe for the first class and Paw Paw for the second class. Next week also features a no-uniform day, so I'll probably try to interject a color-themed song of some sort.
No comments:
Post a Comment