Teaching Notes, 20120419

And, finally, we're back from spring break! I knew that I would have to do some sort of review, but I also realized that I had only about 8 more classes left for the rest of the year. Plus, there would be no class scheduled for the following week because of a field trip. So, I had to make the most of my time. Before the 2nd class started, the teacher had some ragtime playing through her keyboard (sort of like one of those demo songs), and before I started what I had planned with the class, I asked the students if they recognized the kind of music. We have yet to spend a lot of time talking about other genres of music (other than a capella), and so we talked about ragtime a little bit and how it was a genre more popular back when film was just starting out.

Teaching Peace	Review song
In both classes, the students were seated on the colored carpet, so moving right into song seemed natural. But even before we started, I noticed (especially in the first class) that my ukelele was out of tune. I then talked about what happens when one leaves an instrument in a hot car, and how things expand or contract in hot or cold weather. I even showed the students how a tiny bit of tuning peg movement made a noticeable difference in the pitch of the string. We were able to sing through Teaching Peace without too much difficulty, although most students in both classes forgot what to do at "sound off". I also knew that I had forgotten at least one of the stanzas; I recall repeating a stanza rather than using both. I had originally planned on continuing to recreate rhythms for the chorus of Teaching Peace, but I never got to doing it.
Rhythms and Time Signatures	Review notes and rests, introduce more rhythm elements
I had written on pieces of paper either a single quarter note (really just a vertical "ta" line), or a quarter rest, or two eighths, an eighth rest followed by an eighth note, or an eighth note followed by an eighth rest. Then, on a board, I put out four sheets, each showing a quarter note, and I had the students clap the (very simple) rhythm. We quickly reviewed how each paper represented a beat, and four quarters made up a whole measure. I also wrote a "4" to the left of the beats, noting that there were four beats there. I then removed a beat, and I asked the class how many beats there were now - only 3, and so I wrote a "3" above the four. I realize that the 4 underneath isn't really to represent a number of beats, and perhaps I sort of invented my way to explaining how the lower four meant we had quarter notes for beats, but it was an easy leap for students to suddenly go to 5/4 time and know that there were 5 beats there and 5 quarter notes there. Getting the students to clap three beats after I clapped three beats took a bit of practice; I had to remind them not to add a 4th silent beat after I clapped. I also talked about how the students already knew some songs in three (like the Star Spangled Banner). Returning to 4 beats per measure, I replaced a note with a quarter rest, and I had the class practice clapping to the rhythm. I then replaced another beat with two eighth notes, and again we practiced clapping. At this point, I asked if the students were getting tired of clapping, and most did, and so I passed out rhythm sticks. I was a little unprepared here to find a proper way to distribute sticks in such a small space, and as a result I sort of flubbed singing a song for the first class; for the second class, I didn't even bother singing a song. Whoops. We continued to mix quarter notes, quarter beats, and double eighths, and then I noted how quarter rests simply replace quarter notes - why couldn't we do this for eighth notes? And, so I introduced the eighth rest. That then allowed me to introduce the unbarred eighth note, and I showed them initially a paper with an eighth rest followed by an eighth note. We practiced a rhythm with this sort of measure a lot before the students got it right. Not everyone did by the time I moved on. I then replaced the eighth rest/eighth note page with a eighth note/eighth rest page, and I had the students try clapping - lo and behold it sounded just like a regular quarter note! I wanted to illustrate this non-change in order to get the students to realize that beats also mean time spent, and a clap is a very short period of time, even if it is supposed to take up the space of a single beat. I plan on doing more interesting things next week to illustrate this. I always wanted the class to create seemingly random rhythms, and so next I asked four different students to select one of the different papers, and replace each beat (one at at time) with what they selected. The second class students managed to pick nearly all rests initially, so I had a few others choose non-rests. The students came up with: 1st class: quarter, eighth rest/eighth note, two eighths, eighth rest/eighth note 2nd class: quarter, quarter rest, two eighths, eighth note/eighth rest Yup - the two classes nearly made the same rhythm. We practiced each rhythm in each class a few times over and over until the students were able to play each through twice without stopping. I'm sure they won't remember next week, so we'll try it out again.
Tuwe Tuwe	Teach song
I only taught this to the first class, as they had never been introduced to the song before, but it didn't go so well. It didn't sound like the students were really all that interested in learning the song, and so it took a while for them to really pay attention well and follow. This was a bit disappointing, since Tuwe Tuwe can be a really neat sounding song when sung in a round. Perhaps with 3rd graders, the students are more prone to giggling when given a song that is longer and all in a different language, but I know that they didn't have issues with Hello My Friends in the many other languages. I'll probably try this again later in the weeks to come.

Again, I found myself doing only a few different larger units in a single day's lesson, and I wonder if I'm stretching things too long, even though the students are 3rd graders and not younger. I'll plan on mixing things up a little more next time, but I think I'll want to do it in the music room, where I have more tools at my disposal.