Teaching Notes, 2nd grade, 20121108

Believe it or not, this is my first class back from break, as the break was bookended by a week of minimal days (for parent-teacher conferences) and a week covered by the other docent. That's a total of 5 weeks since the last time I taught the second grade, and that seemed like an eternity. Today was also the first day that featured rain - that meant that all of the students were already in their rooms, chatting away during post-lunch recess time. As a result, there was no opportunity to lead the students into a circle; by the time I had entered the room, the teacher had already started assembling the students into a circle on the perimeter of the carpet.

John Brown's Baby	Teach song via echo, introduce a single motion
Because all of the students in both classes were either on the carpet or about to sit down on the carpet, I simply started off singing the song until the students all sat down. After singing once through, the students were seated well enough for me to have them echo me line by line. I then broke to teach them the word "camphorated." I'm a big fan of trying to use music as an excuse to teach other things, and even though the students might not have a chance to use that word in their daily jargon, I took the time to explain its origins. I chatted about how camphor made people warm, which is what we'd all want when we had a cold. I even talked about camphor and its more modern cousin menthol, and how the "ph" in camphor[ated] sounds like an "f" just like other words they've seen. Who says you can't teach complex words in music class? We sang through the song in echo one more time, and then we sang it together. While we all sang it together, I started signing "baby" when we sang the word. After the end of the song, I asked the students if they noticed what I was doing with my arms, and a few students paid enough attention to point out that I looked like I was rocking a baby. I then had the students practice the motion, which was also ASL for "baby". Who says you can't teach ASL in music class? I'd return to this later…
Well Enough Said	Introduce the Call-Response
As an effort to get more ways to recapture the students' attention, I had them practice the "about that" response to "Well enough said". We tried it a few times, and I promised to use it again either later today, next week, next month, or next year! I did use it in both classes a few times later in the day.
Seasons (fall version)	Teach song by immersion, get students thinking about beat
I had the lyrics for Seasons pre-printed, which I displayed either by hand (not quite ideal) or by projector (much better). Hopefully in the future we can get use of the projector in both classes, as the words are tremendously easier to view via the projector. We sang through the song once, and then I displayed a slightly different version of the song, with the first letter of the first word of each of the four lines (measures) highlighted with a larger, red letter. I asked the students to count how many red letters there were, and I then had them clap during each red letter while singing the song. Without really going into why those letters were read, I showed another variation of the lyrics, where each 1st and 3rd beat of each line was marked with a large red first letter. I had the students count the red letters, and again we sang the song while clapping the red letters. Finally, there was a 4th slide of lyrics, this time with red letters on every beat. Without having them count, I had the students sing and clap immediately. I asked the students whether or not we were singing any faster, and after some thought (incorrectly) that we were, I had them sing again while I stomped, instead of clapped, the beat. I continued to stomp after the singing ended, and I asked the students if I was stomping evenly. The students eventually realized that indeed we weren't singing any faster or slower. I also asked if I was stomping in a steady interval, and that allowed me to point out that the clapping was nothing more than keeping the beat. We did go over how 4x2=8 and 8x2=16. Who says you can't teach math in music class?
John Brown's Baby	Redo, but replace words with motions
I sang the song once more again with the baby motion, and then I told the class that they sang so well that they could probably sing the song without singing the words! I got a few confused looks, and so I told them to show the ASL motion for "baby" instead of singing it with their voice. I did it for them, to expected chuckles, and then I challenged them to try it. It *never* happens fully cleanly the first (or second, or third) time, but I didn't stop the song to correct them. We tried this twice, and there was clear improvement (in the quietness during "baby") from the first to second iteration. We then talked about how to remove "cold" - not feeling frigid, but the virus-borne cold - without noise. I had them practice the "world's quietest sneeze", and while there was always one or two students who kept making a sneezing sound, we were able to do the song with reasonable success. At this point, the second class got really giggly and difficult to control. But, in the first class, I was able to proceed with replacing "chest" with tapping (lightly so that we couldn't hear it) the chest. Finally, I got to talk about how camphor and menthol doesn't smell favorably, and so I had them motion as if they were smelling something terrible. This of course generated a lot of giggles, and I simply had to blaze through the song with that motion. The students definitely had a lot of fun with this.
5 Fat Turkeys	Immerse students into the song and motions
I think I did this only with the second class (as I'll mention later I did something different with the first class), but since Thanksgiving was coming up (and I wouldn't have a class with the students before Thanksgiving), I wanted to do this. This also served as a good way to recapture the students' attention. The students, after JBB, were all chuckling a bit uncontrollably, but I simply held my hands out quietly until I had a quorum of students watching. I then moved one hand into position, then the other into position - and then I just started singing the song. We did it one more time, and then I restarted the whole exercise of leaving the hands out again - this time reversing the hands and making a left-handed turkey. :)
Syncopated Cyril	Teach dance, and try it with the song
I wanted to try this dance, as it was (1) simple, and (2) could potentially provide the foundation for future dances. The carpet isn't long enough to have to lines of students fully on the carpet, and so I had to move desks on both sides of the carpet in order to (barely) make enough room. However, the carpet square pattern made it easier (compared to any other class in previous years) to keep students in lines. I first demoed (with the teacher) walking down the middle in between both lines from one end to the other. I then asked the students what would happen if we kept sending people down from one end to the other - we'd run out of room! And so, I encouraged the students to move towards the front each time someone came down the middle. We also practiced crossing the street and turning around. I had to preface this with the fact that there was no crashing, and space was very tight. Finally, it was time to try the dance. The students actually did pretty well, despite the tight quarters, and despite the fact that I only had my laptop to play the song. (I was carrying my laptop, set at full blast, above my head during the entire song.) There was some line jumping, and not everyone got to go down the middle, but I don't think there were cases where students cut lines enough to go twice. In short, this was a good success - the students had fun, they danced, they crossed the street, and no one pushed others around. I only did this with the first class, as the second class was too chaotic for me to try this out witht them. However, I hope to try this next time with the second class. Normally after a dance, I take the time to talk with the students to go over their experiences, but we ran out of time. I had to end the class with a Well Enough Said.
Donut Song	Review, sing song
Some of the students in the second class asked about doing the donut song one last time, and since I didn't think the class was going to handle Syncopated Cyril, I obliged the class and we did the Donut Song together - first slowly, then quickly. This time, the students remembered to sing "goodbye" at the end.

I've found that because I'm in the classroom only every other week, if I want to extend something (like I did with John Brown's Baby), I sort of have to do it by splitting it at the beginning of class and later in the class. Otherwise, it's a long long delay before getting back to the song, and there's a chance we might not be able to do the extension. I had a *lot* queued up just in case including "Things I Am Thankful For" (for Thanksgiving - I'll get this next time), Austrian Yodeler, Fish/Chips/Vinegar, Tommy Tinker, Deep and Wide, and Old King Glory. With the second class not getting the dance, it seems that I've set up the classes with split lesson plans, similar to last year. I suppose I can do things for the first time in both classes, and then reverse things the following class, so that I don't present material for the first time to the same class every week.