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. | |
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.
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