Two weeks ago, my 2nd class was a little more difficult to control, and I thought that the reason was because the students were sitting scattered on the carpet rather than in a circle. And so, this time, I wanted to make sure that the students sat primarily in a circle. Here's how it went.
| A Rig A Jig Jig | Lead students in with song, and put the students in a circle on the perimeter of the carpet |
| For the first class, this was pretty easy, as I led the students after they lined up outside to come in. For the second class, I asked the teacher to have the students sit at their desks. I then asked the students to follow me when I tapped their shoulder; I then walked around the room while singing the song, from desk to desk, and invited all of the students to follow me in the line. I didn't spend time at this point trying to teach the song; this was entirely an immersive exercise and a way to get the students back into a circle. But I would return to this later in the class… | |
| In The Fall | Talk about Seasons, sing song |
| Before we dove into the Halloween material, I asked the students about the weather outside, and the season that we were entering (even though it was actually pretty warm outside). We talked about Autumn, and then I started singing the song. The students had actually covered this song last week with the other docent, and so this became a nice review for them. We quickly sang about the red and yellow leaves, and the crisp and colder air. I then also had them sing about the noisy crows (a stanza not covered last week), which also provided a nice preview into more sinister-sounding songs of Halloween; for "beware", I had the students speak the word in their most low, foreboding voice, because, after all, scarecrows are supposed to be scary. | |
| 1-2 Tie My Shoe | Motion the rhyme until the students figure it out |
| As a change of pace, I decided to keep the students seated, and then I started motioning the rhyme. At first none of the students knew what I was doing, but it was successful in the sense that I managed to get the entire class silent for a brief moment. Eventually some students started figuring it out, and I did the rhyme while speaking the parts. For one class, I used the normal ending ("a big fat hen") even though I was repeating the sequence over and over, but for the second class, I actually signed "do it again" in ASL, which also made things harder for the students to guess. After we ended the spoken version of the sequence for that class, I taught the students that little snippet of ASL, and we did the sequence one more time (twice) in order to have the students try it out. | |
| 5 Little Pumpkins | Sing/immerse students into the song |
| At last, I got a chance to talk with the class about Halloween, and what they were looking forward to seeing. When someone mentioned "pumpkins", we briefly talked about how there were pumpkins being grown right outside the office (really!), and then I immediately sang the song with the hand motions. Many of the students knew the song from a previous class (some from preschool), and so I was able to blaze through this song three times (once via echo) with most of the class singing along with me. | |
| Scary Echo from Ghost of Tom | Have students echo me |
| Halloween is supposed to be scary, right? Well, after singing 5 little pumpkins, I wanted to make the environment just a little spookier, and so I had the students echo the Oooooooo sequence from Ghost of Tom. This didn't take too long, and it also gave me the chance to talk about major vs. minor, particularly when comparing this echo with the previous song. | |
| Stirring Our Brew | Teach song and motions, play attention game |
| We chatted more about what to expect during Halloween (particularly scary stuff), and eventually someone mentioned witches. I asked the class what do witches do, and I got the standard answers (broomsticks, cats, spells); when someone mentioned potions/cauldrons, I then had the students pretend they each had a cauldron. One student in each class remembered "Keep The Kettle Boiling" and asked to play that game, but I reminded the students that this was indeed a scary cauldron and we wouldn't want to jump into it. This song is pretty short, and entirely in echo, I had the students sing "Stirring…" while motioning the stirring of a huge cauldron. When it came down to "tip… toe…", I started creeping into the middle, and so did all of the students. When I (moderately loudly) said "boo", a lot of the students happily giggle-screamed. We tried this a second time, but this time I held onto the "boo" until I had everyone's attention, which made the surprise even more enjoyable. We did this a third time, which I ended with a very loud "BOO!" Hopefully the class next door didn't mind too much. :) | |
| Ghost of Tom | Immerse and zipper in names |
| With the students seated again, I simply started singing this song. With the Ooooooo already covered earlier, this became and easy song for the students to pick up. Neither class had a student named "Tom", and so after the first iteration, I simply added a random student's name. I kept substituting names for a bit; for some, they wanted to be picked; however, there were a few students who didn't appreciate the extra attention. I eventually asked for volunteers (there was an ample supply), and we sang the sequence using a few more willing names. I emphasized singing the last line in a whispery staccato - this made the song even spookier and when I asked the students to compare a legato last line vs. a staccato last line, they most definitely felt that the staccato was creepier. | |
| A Rig A Jig Jig | Immerse in step, and return students to seats |
| With time running down, I decided to get the students used to stepping to a beat. We actually never had a chance to do this in a circle, and I noticed that the students actually weren't all that used to it. (When walking in, they generally weren't stepping to a beat consistently.) After I got them mostly to step in beat, I started singing the song - some students, particularly those who knew it from a previous class, started singing with me. At this point, I instructed the class (while still stepping) to follow me around the room, and when they passed their own desks, to sit down. Picking up the pace, I started meandering around the desks in the room. It took about 4 (2-stanza) iterations of the song in order to cover all of the ground. By the time everyone was at their desks seated, I ended the song with "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye" in place of the "hi-ho"'s. | |
Today was also the first time that I had to ask two students (from the 2nd class) to sit outside the circle for being disruptive. On the flip side of things, it took 3 classes to get to that point, which is longer than past years.
I'll be back in about a month, thanks to the intersession break, plus teacher-parent conference week and the tag-team docent setup that we have at the school. In the meantime, have a happy and healthy Halloween!
