Teaching Notes, 2nd grade, 20121220

Today was one of the few times when I had the opportunity to teach the same class in back to back weeks. Since today was the last day before the winter break, and just about all classes (including my two classes) were holding holiday parties during the last half hour of school, the other docent and I decided to teach one class apiece during the first half hour (for about 20 minutes), and then we'd combine the two classes for a big 50-student sing-a-long. My class for the first half hour was the class I typically taught first.

Everybody Oughta Know	Warm up students with the song
As the students gathered onto the carpet, I started singing this song, and only a few students sang along with me. Thus, I turned this into a warmup-review, and we methodically covered how the song was sung. We ended up singing this all the way through three times.
Winter Fantasy	Review song w/ staff music
Last week, the students very briefly saw the lyrics and music to Winter Fantasy, and so I wanted to spend the majority of the time that I had with them to teach the song properly. With the sheet music for the entire song now on display, I walked through the song with the students one line at a time via echo. We then sang the song together two lines at a time, although I had to spend a little more time focusing on the faster parts of the song (e.g. "everybody rushing 'round"). This also allowed me to review the different kinds of notes - half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes; nearly every part of the song involving eighth notes was sung quickly. I discovered today that music displayed via the projector works well for quarters, half, and whole notes, but the projection resolution isn't great for thin stems, particularly for the eighth notes. As a result, I had to draw with a dry erase marker the same notes so that the students could see the rhythm. We practiced this a few times before declaring us ready for the sing-a-long.
Introduction to Ukulele	Introduce instrument, allow students to strum
A few students before class started noticed that I brought a ukulele, and I was planning to use it during the sing-a-long. Thus, with the time that I had left before the other classroom students arrived, I broke out the uke and started showing it to the students. I've done this with my classes each year, and this time was no different - we talked about its similarities/differences when compared to a guitar. I also walked around the students, allowing each to do a single-finger strum so that they could feel what it was like to strum the strings. Finally, I talked about how sounds meant vibrations (they could see it in the strings when I plucked them), and when I moved a finger up the fingerboard, the sound pitch went up. I then talked about how small things typically meant high pitches, while large things typically meant lower pitches. It was at this point when the students from the other class came in…
Jingle Bells + Winter Fantasy	Have both classes sing both songs together
When the other class came in, I now had both classes side by side. I asked the other class if they had a song to sing; they nodded in affirmation. At this point, I started strumming a C-chord and sometimes an open G, to suggest a starting pitch, as I wanted to keep the two classes singing in C. I then had the other docent lead this group of students to sing Jingle Bells. After they had completed, I also announced that my class had a song to sing, and I led my group through Winter Fantasy, also in C. At this point, I told the students that our songs could sing their songs together! Taking the tempo somewhat more slowly, I gave the students a count to 4, and we were off! Having the ukulele was I think very helpful, since I was able to enforce some sort of regular beat with the strum. The second class (singing Jingle Bells) were singing rather loudly, almost shouting, and while I let both groups finish (and finish together they did), I noted to the second class that they didn't have to shout, as they couldn't hear what the first class was singing. We sang through the song again, and this time, the first(!) class was overpowering the students. I wanted to get one more good attempt down, and so I told both classes to sing softly, and I gave them an example using the first ilnes of each song. The third time was indeed a charm, and we were able to get both classes to sing together quite nicely! During this activity, I had the overhead display both sets of lyrics, split so that the second class's seated position was in line with their lyrics, and vice versa. The lyrics were also printed so that simultaneously sung lyrics were on the same vertical position on the paper.
12 Days of Christmas	Sing together, change lyrics
I had a little treat for the students - I had printed out the 12 different stanza lines in descending order (as if it were the 12th day), and I had covered up all but the lines that were relevant to the current iteration, i.e. starting with the very last line. Each iteration, I'd reveal the line above, and we would continue singing. But, I wanted this to be more than just your standard holiday fare - instead, I told the students after the 3rd iteration that they clearly knew the song. For that reason, I changed the lyrics to the 8 days of Hannkukah, and starting with the 4th line from the bottom, we continued to sing. After completing the 6th iteration, I changed the lyrics again to the 12 days of vacation, and again started, this time from the 7th day. After we hit the 8th day, I switched to the 12 days in Hawaii (a mishmash of some benign lyrics I found on the web mixed in with some lyrics from "Numbah One Day of Christmas"). By the time we finished the 11th song, I told the students that since there were parents next door finishing preparations for the party that we'd be better off singing the traditional lyrics, so we sang the 12th iteration using the original lyrics. This was a ton of fun, in every sense of the word. The students started with a familiar tune, but they were captivated by what was the next line, especially after the 3rd when we were no longer singing the standard words. I found the lyrics to the 12 days of vacation online, and in retrospect, since I knew I wasn't going to sing all 12, I could have eliminated some lines (e.g. "don't hit your sister') with something more benign, but the kids sang them gleefully anyway.

And so, we were able to hold court with 50 students for two songs. With a group so large, it's difficult to spend time answering questions, and just as if I had a standard size class of 1st or Kinders, you have to steer the class to the next activity with little downtime and with little options for the students. But it was clearly doable, and I suspect in the new year we'll try something like this again. Have a happy and healthy holiday, everyone. We'll return to the blog (and to more classes) in January.

Teaching Notes, 2nd grade, 20121213

With classes only every other week for me, this was my first (and really the only) time to cover end-of-year holiday material. At the same time, I really wanted to review forms with the Nutcracker snippets that I've used in past classes. I also wanted to prepare the class for a mini singalong that will take place the following week.

March of the Toy Soldiers (Nutcracker) and forms	Play song for students and discuss forms
I started playing the song (over the room's speaker system - a first for me!) while the students were gathering onto the carpet. There were several students who remarked that they knew the song and that it was from The Nutcracker. (Some also noted that they themselves were performing in a local rendition of the show.) I had pre-cut the three different musical themes to the show, and after the students listened to the entire song (about 2 1/2 minutes), I asked them to think of how they felt when hearing the first of the three snippets. I then asked the students, and I received (as expected) a variety of answers centering around dancing, marching, and in an overall sense, feeling positive. I then played the second snippet, and I received answers of "mad, stomping, and mild anger". The third snippet yielded feelings of fright, running, chasing, and hurriedness. I then had the teacher choose three students who were "having a good day", to come up to the front and represent one of the three musical snippets. Then, I asked the students to tell me whose music was playing while I replayed the original song; I wrote the first initial of the student's name corresponding to the snippet being played. The students did a pretty good job, although I did get more spurious answers about whose music was playing in the second class. With the pattern written out (AABAACAABAA), we recited the string of letters and I re-introduced the concept of the form to the students. Note that I doubled the lettering of the first snippet - by doing so, it keeps the amount of time attributable to each snippet the same.
Jingle Bells	Run through song, review written notes
I took out a E tone bell (more on this later), displayed a page of lyrics (via the overhead projector onto the whiteboard) to (the chorus of) Jingle Bells, and instructed the class to sing what they saw. Of course they sang away. I asked them how many syllables there were for the first three phrases of the first line, and they answered correctly; I wrote out eleven vertical lines representing the syllables. I then asked the students if the syllables were all the same. Their initial answer was "no", but because the words were different. I then asked them to think of another reason why the syllables were different other than the differing words, and I couldn't get a compelling answer. I then recited the first line as if every syllable took the same amount of time. The students of course noted that the words aren't supposed to be spoken that way. They weren't supposed to be sung that way either, and so I asked them why not. At that point, a few students noted that some syllables had more space between them. Yay! I knew that the students had music in past years, enough to know about the Kodaly rhythmic notes. And so, I decided to simply change the vertical bars into quarter and half notes by adding the circles to them. (I kept "jingle all the" near the end of that first line as 4 quarters.) Many students remembered the quarter and half note notation. I focused on the first measure (although I didn't use the term "measure" yet). I asked the students what 1/4 + 1/4 was; it took a while (and I don't think the students have quite worked with fractions yet), but eventually someone answered that you'd get 1/2. I then asked what was 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/2, and that took a little while, but eventually we reached an answer of 1. I wrote a vertical line to separate those three notes from the next three, but I didn't say why; I also noted that the next three notes also added up to 1. For the next four notes, I asked the students what 4 x 1/4 was - I got a few students also say "1", although I don't know if all of them knew exactly why, as I think some were just expecting a pattern. I drew two more vertical lines to separate the remaining measures on that first line. Finally, I pointed out that the last syllable/note/word had to take up the whole time, which was "1" - hence, the whole note. At this time, I re-introduced the term "measure", and its purpose in music. I then showed the students what the notes would look like for the rest of the song - I replaced the overhead projection of the words with another projection of the words plus notes (without the staff). I received some oohs and ahhs. I then took the time to point out two tidbits that we didn't see in the first line: eighth notes in a later measure, and two tied half notes ("sleigh" in "one horse open sleigh"). I tried to explain that the eighth notes were two syllables that had to fit in the space of a quarter, but I think I rushed that concept a bit; I eventually just offered that they were eighth notes, and 1/8 + 1/8 = 1/4, rather than having the students come up with that organically. The tied half notes were easier to explain - the students figured out that it was really representing two tones for the same syllable. I asked what would happen if the second of the tied notes were placed lower than the first, and the students correctly concluded that the sound would go down instead of up. I asked the students if they could see the height differences with many of the notes. Even notes that were only a step different had noticeable height differences, but I told the class that (1) students in the back of the class would have a much harder time seeing the height difference, and (2) it's hard to measure how much higher or lower you should sing the next note. I asked the students what helps them write on a piece of paper neatly - and they all knew that they needed lines in order to do that. And so, I replaced the overhead chart of notes and words with one with the same notes and words on musical staffs. I didn't mention the name "staff", but I did show them the helpfulness of having lines on a piece of paper. At this point, I changed the projected paper to the (first) stanza of Jingle Bells, and with that displayed, I gave them the sound of a "G" tone bell, and then asked the students to sing away. At the end of the stanza, I re-displayed the chorus in full musical staff glory. The pages of the lyrics, with and without the staff or notes were actually created via LibreOffice, although any drawing program that supports layers would do. I made the words, staff, and notes all different layers, and printing with our without these features was really easy. What was also nice is that the positions of the words and notes didn't change from slide to slide, and I think that really eliminated a source of random questions about differences between slides that don't matter. One last note here - during the math-related discussions, some students preferred to think of quarters and halfs in terms of dollars; 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/2 = 100 (cents). Perhaps that might be why "eighths" didn't make as much sense, instead of quarters and half (dollars).
Winter Fantasy	Immerse song with sheet music
After the students sang Jingle Bells, I projected the sheet music for Winter Fantasy. I asked the students to look at the music while I sang through. I then asked the students to try to sing with me while they read the lyrics on the board again. I didn't really have much time to practice this, and I'll explain why I threw this up on the board later. The students seemed to pick up on the song pretty well, except for the faster parts when the students' voices simply dropped off. Incidentally, with Jingle Bells using quarters for "Jingle", Winter Fantasy ends up being littered with half notes. but the students didn't seem to be bothered by that. You can find a link to the Winter Fantasy music here.

Believe it or not, that was it! All that took nearly 30 minutes for the 1st class, and nearly 35 minutes for the second class. The students in the 2nd class wanted to sing the donut song at the end of class, and so I obliged them, even though it made the class even longer.

So, the following week is the last week before break, and our class happens to be on the last *day* before break. Both classes will be having a joint party and rather than not have music (or interrupt the party with music class), the other docent and I decided to try to do simultaneous classes during the 1st class timeslot, followed by a short sing-a-long with both classes. My *hope* is to be able to sing both Jingle Bells and Winter Fantasy at the same time; they do work well together, but it'll take some practice. The class that I have will likely be singing Winter Fantasy, and I'll have to make sure that they're prepared to sing even with the other class singing a different song. It'll also be a challenge to keep both classes in tune, as the 2nd class tends to want to shout rather than sing.

In past years, I've had students play tone bells to Jingle Bells, and it's always a big hit. However, this time, I clearly didn't have enough time, even with the second class for which I had more than 30 minutes. I don't like doing it, but I did mention to the second class that we were unable to spend much time with the tone bells because too many distractions impeded timely progress during the class.

Teaching Notes, Pre-K, 20121206

Once every year, I've had an opportunity to teach at a preschool (either where my son or daughter attends), and today was that day. This is actually at the preschool affiliated with the school where I normally teach, and the teacher of the class had been trying to get me to come in ever since the school year started. But, this week the preschool teachers were introducing various musical instruments to the kids, and so it seemed natural for me to come in this week.

I had a lot of instruments with me - a guitar, a ukulele, a glockenspiel, a flat drum, a pair of bongos, four triangles, two pairs of claves, and a multitude of egg shakers and maracas. Needless to say, I was ready to show them a whole lot instruments. However, the class evolved into more of a regular class. Here's what happened.

Hello (Ella Jenkins)	Immerse students as they made their way to the carpet
When I arrived, the students were just coming out of their post-lunch nap, and so there were a lot of bleary-eyed children. By the time I had all of my equipment, a majority of the kids had put away their sheets, and so it was time for me to start singing. This song is the Hello song from one of Ella Jenkins' albums ("Hello, hello, hello and how are you?…"), and I simply started singing it to the students. After three iterations, they started to smile a bit more, and so I asked them whether or not they could sing with me. Some nodded, and so we sang it together one more time. I think I was able to get about half of the students to sing part of the song.
Hello In Many Languages	Have students copy me
I tried to mimic what Ella Jenkins did on her CD again, and so we covered various greetings in English, followed by Mandarin (which everyone of course knew), Spanish, French, Japanese, German, and then Hawaiian. The students seemed to have a lot of fun repeating words that were certainly different from what they normally heard during the day. I then used "aloha" as a way to move to the next activity…
Aloha Kakahiaka	Teach phrases, and have kids follow a simple hula
After teaching the students "aloha", I then taught them the three aloha phrases (aloha kakahiaka, aloha auinala, aloha ahiahi) and explained what they meant. I then told them to mimic what I did, and so I started singing the song while doing very simple movements. For aloha auinala, I asked the kids where the sun was in the afternoon - "the sky" they (mostly) said. So, I during that part of the song, I had them briefly curl their arms above their heads to make a circular sun. When we got to "aloha ahiahi", I asked what they did at night - "sleep" they all answered, and so I had them put their palms together and make a pillow under their heads. The kids seemed to follow the motions pretty well in general, and even though they didn't know the words (I only went through the song once), many of them picked up pieces of the melodic and lyrical pattern to contribute vocally just a little bit.
Intro to Guitar	Show guitar, and let the children strum
I had plenty of instruments to get through today, and so it was time finally to bring out the guitar. The students actually had seen a guitar plenty of times during the week, and so many of them shouted out the instruments name when I brought it out. We talked a little about the strings on the guitar, and I played a few chords. At this time, I had all of the students raise their hand if they wanted to try a little strum - just about everyone did, so I walked around the circle (more like a square), and I allowed each child to strum lightly the strings with one finger. Unlike in other classes when I tried this, the pre-K's never overstrummed, and many only played one or two strings. I asked the students if their finger felt funny - no one said so. And so, I told them to watch closely the biggest string as I plucked it hard. I wanted them to see the vibrating string, and most noticed it. I told them that in order to have sound, you had to have movement. Many didn't quite get that, and so I had a few students place their palm on the back of the guitar while I plucked the same string. At that point, those students acknowledged that they did indeed feel something there! I then had the students watch me as I plucked the top E string as I moved a finger up the fingerboard. I asked them what was happening to the sound - and they noted that it was changing! However, as they were pre-K's, they couldn't really tell me if it was higher or lower, and so I told them that the sound was going up, up, up! I reversed my direction on the fingerboard, and now I was illustrating to them a sound that was going down, down, down. I spent probably 10 seconds trying to explain how the length of the string was changing the pitch, but it was very apparent that that was way over their heads. And so, I asked them to think about something really big, like, a train. What does a train sound like? Well, if you ask that to pre-K's, they will all say in a high voice, "toot, toot!", which isn't quite what I wanted. I had them mimic me with "chugga chugga" in a low low voice; at that point, I asked them if a train was big or small. (They answered that question correctly.) I then asked them to make the sound of a little bird, and while some were making big deep tweets, I made a tiny one and everyone followed. Was a bird big or small, I asked, and they all said that it was small. At that point, I quickly tried to get them to think that big meant low and small meant high. I don't know if that really stuck... At this point, I told them that even though they didn't change their size, their voice was making low and high sounds! That was a good segue into…
I Can Sing Up High	Talk about sounds, and teach song with movement
This is always a Kindergartener favorite, and so I was pretty sure that this would work well with the pre-K's. With the concept of a high sound and a low sound in hand, I had the class follow my motions. I sang the first line, reached up to the ceiling, and the kids followed suit. I did the a similar thing reaching down to my toes for the second line. The kids, now standing, were really having a ton of fun with this, and I continued with the exercise until we finished it. We did this again for a second time, and for the third time, I asked the students to try to follow as best as I could, and I did the song slowly, but without stops after each line. We did this two more times, both just a hair faster than the last. For something like this, I didn't want to try to make the activity so fast that they couldn't follow. That just wouldn't have been fair to the 4- and 5- year olds.
Who's That (Laurie Berkner)	Sing song with guitar
With the students seated again, I grabbed the guitar again, and I asked the students to echo "Who's that?" whenever I sang the same phrase. We practiced this twice, and then I started singing the song. Who's That is a great pre-K and K song; it gets the students echoing at different parts of the song, and so they still have to pay attention to when I say those two fun words. I also took advantage of the fact that the students can't really read much; I had the words printed right in front of me, and the kids didn't care.
Intro to Glockenspiel	Demo instrument
I borrowed a small glockenspiel from the regular stash from the school, and when I showed it to the students, many chimed in saying that they either had something like it at home, or that it looked like a piano. (Funny how that's the same reaction that I get from 3rd and 4th graders!) I realized at this point that it would take a lot of precious time to have each of the students try to play (and it would be probably really cacophonous), and so I ended up playing a C scale. At that point, the kids started to sing Do-Re-Mi, and I realized that there was a scale already written behind me on the wall, with Do-Re-Mi (and the rest of the scale) labelling the notes! Clearly they've been practicing for my arrival. :) At this point, I used the glockenspiel to sing…
I am a Pizza (Charlotte Diamond)	Immerse
There were a few kids who knew this song, and so we had a good time singing this. Even though I asked the students to echo me, I had to still gesture whenever I wanted an echo, which actually works out since the end of each stanza doesn't really echo. The kids predictably had fun with this song.
Twinkle Twinkle and other variants	Illustrate different lyrics for the same tune
I asked the students to mimic my hands as I started doing flashes with them while keeping a beat. Very quickly, students started to sing Twinkle Twinkle; I had forgotten that regularly-paced hand flashes were the international symbol for that song. When they finished, I gave them a puzzled look, and I informed them that I had learned the song but with very different words. I asked them if they wanted to hear it (and of course they said yes), and so I kept doing the flashes, but I sang A-B-C instead. Many children sang along with me, of course. When I finished, I gave them a pensive look, and then told them that actually I knew other words; I started singing Baa Baa Black Sheep, and again students laughed and sung with me. That made 3 songs to the same tune, and there were a couple of students who realized what was happening. I then told the class that Iiked their version the best, and so we finished this exercise by singing Twinkle Twinkle one last time.
Colors (Kira Willey)	Have students move on cue to parts of the song
Colors was a song that I had never used in a class, but it seemed like a great song for pre-K (and perhaps Kinders). The song features 9 colors (and a rainbow), and so for each color, I asked the class who was wearing that particular color. I then asked them what has all of the colors that you could think of, and plenty of the children shouted "rainbow!". At this time, I told them that I was going to sing a song about colors, and when I sang a color that they were wearing, they could move their hands in the air. Furthermore, everyone had a color that was a part of a rainbow, and so when I sang "rainbow", everyone could move around. I had pre-printed illustrations about each color that fit the lyric (e.g. green cricket, grey fog), and I had ordered the slides so that I could sing them in the order of the song. I had to have 6 different illustrations of rainbows, and to make it a little fun, I threw in a rainbow cake as well as a cartoonish rainbow into the stack of sheets. Needless to say, the kids had a great time with this, especially when one of the printed sheets was upside down.
Razzama Tazzama	Dive right into the activity
Razama Tazzama is one activity that is great for the smaller kids. I had the students watch what I was doing; I asked them to follow me, and so I jumped right into the song. No one sang with me during the first chorus, but there were plenty of singing voices by the time we got to the second chorus. Similar to what I noticed earlier, unlike the older kids, these pre-K'ers don't go nuts with the motions, even at the "wally-woo-hoo". That made this a ton of fun without any kids flopping into each other. Yay.
Goodbye in many languages	Have children echo me
It was nearly time to go, and so I told them that I wanted to say goodbye, but in the same manner that I used to say hello. So, the students echoed me as I said goodbye in French, Spanish, Japanese, and then Mandarin.
Blow a Kiss (Laurie Berkner)	Have children blow kisses to the song
This was my goodbye song that I used last year, and it's a real fun one for pre-K and Kinders. I first asked the students how to blow a kiss, and they tried that a few times. I then told them to do that same motion when I sang "blow a kiss". The song provides plenty of opportunities, but after a while, the students simply kept blowing kisses without waiting for a prompt. I started playing this song on guitar, but during a chorus near the end of the song, I put my guitar down and I tried to rally the students again to blow kisses when the lyrics called for it. Anyhow, this was (and is) a great song to end the day.

Even though this was just a pre-K class, I had many more songs and activities lined up; I simply ran out of time. While kids at that age require that you (the teacher) keep changing the activity, each activity actually takes more time than it would for older kids, as you have to go that much more slowly. I noticed though that I could get the students to accomplish a whole lot with large sweeping motions (as in "I Can Sing Up High"), and also just by walking around and smiling when singing. The pre-K's respond to smiles so much more effectively than any other age group.

Other activities that I didn't get to was the Balloon Song from Ella Jenkins, If You Got 1 from Justin Roberts, I Am A Bubble form Charlotte Diamond, I'm A Gonna Drive My Car by Laurie Berkner, the Two Hands poem, 5 Days Old also from Laurie Berkner, and Victor Vito (Laurie Berkner once more). In retrospect, all of that alone is enough for yet another class, and so I told the teachers that perhaps one day later in the school year, I could come back and teach some more.

Teaching Notes, 2nd grade, 20121129

This is my first class back from Thanksgiving, and even though I have only one more class scheduled between now and the end of the calendar year (more on that later), I wanted to review some more Thanksgiving material while also bringing the 2nd class into the world of dance. Today was also an interesting exercise in going with the flow in terms of class planning; I ended up taking the first exercise in a completely different direction than I had originally planned...

A Rig A Jig Jig	Lead class into room with the song, teach two more stanzas, and settle in a circle
The last time I covered A Rig A Jig Jig, I had used it to lead students lining in from outside into the room and eventually into a circle. I was all ready to do exactly that with the first class, but thanks to the rain, the students arrived at the door a bit early, and not all that once. It didn't make sense to have them all wait in the rain outside, and so they filtered in. I still wanted to get them following me immediately (rather than having them just stand around and wait for the rest of the class), and so I gestured for a few students to follow me, and I started walking around the outside of the carpet, but in different ways - sometimes I'd just walk, sometimes I'd hop, sometimes I'd walk sideways or backwards, and sometimes I'd vary the length or height of my steps. Anyhow, I kept doing this for a while until I had about 80% of the students in, and then I started singing the song. For the second class, the students were seated at their tables, and so I started walking around the class, tapping the shoulders of kids as a signal for them to follow me as I sang. The second class however seemed to have a little more trouble trying to follow the path of the other children; while the first class was able to maintain a circle, the second class seemed to continually shrink the circle over time; at the end of the song (before singing new verses), I had to get the students to re-form the circle around the outside of the carpet. We sang new verses - the clap/stomp verse (with clapping and stomping of course), as the jump/come back down verse (you can guess what we did here). After the stomping verse, I actually had the students stop singing but continue to stomp, in beat, and I asked the students what it meant to have a continuous but steady sound that lasts through the song. Only a few remembered "beat". :/ We ended the song and walk with A Rig A Jig Jig (the chorus). And, that's where things went differently. I was going to move onto the next exercise, but instead, I decided to write "Chorus" and "Stanza" on the board, and I taught the two classes what the words meant. I then asked the students what they sang the most, and naturally everyone picked out "A Rig A Jig Jig"; I wrote that phrase under "Chorus". Next, I asked the students what else they sang. The students from both classes remembered "Clapping/stomping", and I asked them what was sung next. It took a little while, but we did reach a consensus that indeed A Rig A Jig Jig followed. I wrote "Clapping/stomping" under "Stanza". We continued this process with the other two stanzas ("jump/come back down", and "As I was walking"). I then reviewed with the students what we song, by writing a capital A when we sang the chorus, and a lowercase first letter of a stanza when we sang a particular stanza. This led to a string resembling "AcAjAaA". I sort of forced the students down the path here to make the Stanzas simply "B" (no real reasoning given), and so that transformed the string to "ABABABA". Voila - that was the form of the song, and I told the students that all songs can be boiled down to a form like this. I promised that we'd talk about form again soon.
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 was only able to do this with the first class a few weeks ago, and so I wanted to try this out with the second class. The second class it seems has a harder time to stay focused; the class is very chatty, and there are a few students who have been more physical with each other, something that I don't see in first class. As a result, this was a bit of calculated risk, but I was really hoping for some level of success, since Syncopated Cyril is one of the simplest "dances" that you can think of. Similar to what I did with the first class, I had the students line up on the two outermost edges of the carpet, and I explained that those edges represented the sidewalks of a street. (Even then, there were some students who for fun were jumping into the middle of the street.) Before we practiced crossing the street, I had to remind the students to not bump, push, or run. We practiced crossing a few times, and then it was time to have the people at the top of the lines walk down the middle. I don't think I did a good enough job with the practicing than I did with the first class, as I routinely had students bunch up near the end of the lines, making it that much harder down there to cross the street. This, despite the fact that I didn't even bother having the students try turning around. Alas, it was time to try out the song, and so we started. Again, I had only my laptop and its itty-bitty speakers to play music, which was a bit of a bummer. After the first pair of students walked down, the students (after some encouragement) did cross the street, but it took a long time, and there was no chance of trying to "go back". We were able to get through a few iterations until it became strikingly clear to me (and to many of the students) that people were jumping the lines (someone made their way to the top very quickly after already going down the middle). There was also some shoving going on near the back of the line, and I had to give a very stern warning to all 4 students involved, noting that all 4 had to work together. I stopped the music right there, and I then had the students sit down and talk about what was going on, and why there was so much commotion. It was this time when I asked the students what their room number was (9), and that I was going to call them "Team 9" (something that I got used to using back when I taught 3rd graders two years ago); this group wasn't just a room of students, it was a team, and it was imperative that we all work together to get this working. I also addressed the line jumping; I had the students stand up, line up, and look to their left and right to see who their neighbors were. I then reminded them that after they crossed the street, their neighbors should be the same neighbors. (This apparently was a sort of eureka for many of them.) I asked who had not walked down the center and wanted to, and I reordered the line a bit to put those students near the top. Off we went, with a restart of the song. This time, there was remarkably less pushing, although there was still some (which I was able to address quickly without issue). I still had to remind students to scoot towards the front as pairs of students were walking down the middle. But, in the end, we were able to complete the song, and students enjoyed it enough to ask for more. This was one of those cases where it was better to just re-try the exercise rather than move on or (worse) ask the students if they wanted to try (which would, I'm sure, have led to a lot varied answers and some very vocal No's). I'm glad we were able to get it done the second time around, and it also allowed every child (who wanted to) go down the middle of the path. We ended the exercise with another powwow, talking about what worked. A student noted that it worked better when they all worked as a team to cross the street, which I was happy to hear; if the students take away anything, it would be a way to work together more effectively, even if they don't remember how to do this dance. I had to use Well Enough Said a bunch of times for the second class in order to recapture their attention. At least the WES responses got a bit tighter as the day proceeded.
Many Things I am Thankful For	Teach Song, zipper or solo in substitutions
Since I wanted to do a dance with the second class, I taught this song to only the first class. We started out talking about Thanksgiving, what it meant to the students (people liked spending time with family, etc.), and eventually we talked about the origins of Thanksgiving. I then decided to sing the song, and for good measure, I signed "Earth", "sea" and "friends" in ASL. After singing through the song, I asked what the students were thankful for, and I sang through the song while inserting the students' suggestions. There's always risk of getting some unusual suggestions (someone suggested "money"), but we sang them anyway. My original hope was to get some solos in, and even after suggestions 4-6, no one wanted to do a solo. I finally was able to get two volunteers for suggestions 7 and 8. I had to prompt the students to sing the full zipper "I'm thankful for….", and not just the topic that they were thankful for. But, after we sang through, it seemed like the rest of the class was more inspired to sing solos as well, as there were plenty of hands now shooting up. I probably should have kept going, but I did want to cover more things, and so I changed activities.
Fish and Chips and Vinegar	Immerse students into song, get students to sing multiple parts
I started doing a pat-clap-clap pattern until most of the students started following me, and then I started singing the first stanza to the percussive pattern. During "Pepper, pepper, pepper, salt", I motioned with large sweeping arms adding pepper and salt to an imaginary plate, which amused the children to no end. I had pre-printed out the lyrics, one stanza per sheet, such that each line contained exactly one measure, and for the second class, we managed to project the lyrics onto the board, which helped the class a bit, as we were getting short on time there. We practiced this three times before moving onto the next stanza. For the Dustpan stanza, I changed the percussion to a clap-palm slide-palm slide (as if you were simply rubbing your palms together like they were sand blocks). Again, I immersed the students with the song, and again I had the lyrics projected for the second class. When it came to the 3rd stanza, I ended up motioning the numbers in ASL, and I took a short break to teach 8, 9 and 10 in ASL as well. With all 3 stanzas now covered, I had the students sing the entire song once through and ending again with the first stanza (4 stanzas total). While that was all I could do with the second class, for the first class, I also recorded the students singing - as expected they really loved hearing themselves, but interestingly for the first time they sang to a computer, they were actually singing a bit timidly. I then split the class into two and had one side sing the first stanza repeatedly while I cued in the other side singing the 3rd stanza. It sounded sort of ok, but I had to conduct the classes pretty vigorously in order to keep them together. I recorded them singing the two parts also, and this time, both sides were trying to drown out each other. I played back only a small snippet of the clipped recording, and I talked a bit about the limits of recording, as well as singing without yelling. We'll try this (for both classes) in the near future again.

I was ready to pull off Old King Glory in the first class, but I'm glad I was able to cover a little more Thanksgiving material with them, as OKG can be done pretty much any time.

I really need to take the time either to get access to the sound system in either classroom, or I need to make use of the boombox more. In addition, I also need to find time to bring out some of the instruments.

I'm going to need another tool to recapture the students attention, particularly for the second class. Well Enough Said works great because it's loud, the response is (ideally) quick and loud, and the students are quiet immediately afterward. Some teachers use the "dum didley dum dum" call and answer, and while it sometimes works, I think I'll need to find something more unusual yet strong enough to be effective when the students are chatting or being otherwise noisy and inattentive.

On a side note, I also get to spend some time with my daughter's pre-K class as a music teacher. I did something similar last year, and it sounds like I'll have a similar opportunity again the following week (when I'm not teaching the 2nd graders). And so, my next post will talk about singing with 4- and 5- year olds.