Today turns out to also be the last music class for the students before their spring break, since next week's class is consumed by a field trip, and the following week features all minimum days due to parent-teacher conferences. As such, I wanted to review what we didn't quite finish two weeks ago, and do something we haven't done before (again, leading back to the instruments).
| Everybody Oughta Know | Lead students into room with song |
| I led the students into the room with this song, and I tried to get them to walk in a circle (something we hadn't tried for months due to the small spaces in the regular classrooms. It is surprisingly difficult to have students, even 2nd graders, try to maintain a decently-sized circle. At one point in time, I even sang "everybody oughta know what a circle is" just to get the students paying attention to the cramped shape they were forming, despite having plenty of room. After they sat down, we sang it one more time, and I sang "everybody oughta know what rhythm sticks are…" You can imagine what the response was to that! | |
| Rhythm Sticks | Introduce instrument, proper holding, follow-sticking |
| I passed out first just one rhythm stick to the students, since I didn't want to have the room immediately descend into stick chaos. I purposely passed out the ribbed (I called them "groovy" to the students) sticks first, and we talked about the ridges. I then showed them how to hold the stick as if it were the one that was going to get hit - I had them hold it like a clave, with a space formed with the hand. Without the second stick, we couldn't illustrate the purpose of holding the stick in such a way, so I then passed out the second stick. In order to reduce rampant sticking, I had the students hold out the groovy stick away form their bodies as if they were about to play the sticks.
With the sticks now out, I had the students try playing a single tap (as a group), keeping in mind the space they formed with their hand. I then instructed the students to hold the groovy stick as tighly as possible, and again we all played a single tap. While the two sounds were roughly the same, the students did acknowledge that it was less comfortable to play the sticks while holding the groovy stick tightly. I then illustrated for them the difference between holding the stick while forming a space, and holding the sticks as tightly as possible; I don't think having the students try it out is generally all that successful. (Some students don't have enough strength and dexterity in their hands/fingers to pull it off well, anyway.) It was time to play, and so I had the students first do an echo of me; I would play a single hit, and they'd copy. I eventually moved to two hits per echoing, then three. I then added a few different motions while sticking, and the students mostly followed. Next, I had the students try to keep a slow and steady (key being slow) beat as a group, and they did pretty well avoiding too much speedup. Finally, it was time for them to try to follow me sticking to a song. I had them practice a few different patterns (sticking 4 beat in a circle, motioning a "Z" with beats on each vertex, etc.). The song I chose was "Raisins" by Barenaked Ladies - a song that I chose during the very first year I taught - as it's pretty short (1:40) and isn't terribly fast. The kids had a good time with this. When all was done, I had the students return the sticks (with me carrying a box around the circle while singing... | |
| Oh My Goodness, Look At This Mess | Review, sing a stanza |
| I sang the chorus to the song while collecting the sticks, and a few, but not all of the students sang with me. I had prewritten on the board the lyrics to the chorus, as well as the 3rd stanza ("Why are these crumbs all of over the floor…"). We sang through the chorus one more time as I motioned to the board, and then I pointed to the stanza, which the kids sang without much of a break after the chorus was completed. After finishing the stanza, I asked what was next to sing, and the students correctly pointed to the chorus; and so we sang the chorus one last time.
I didn't want to do much with the song here; I just wanted to keep it fresh in their minds, and try out one of the later stanzas, since typically songs are sung in order and the early stanzas tend to be retained better than the later ones. | |
| Sasha | Re-teach dance and words |
| The students didn't really get to experience Sasha completely last time, and so I wanted to try it again, since it seemed like the students were getting it two weeks ago; they simply ran out of time. Like last time, we covered "Ras", "Dva", "Tri", and we also talked about the origin of the name "Sasha". While I plucked out a student to demo the clapping, this time I had the students pair and practice along with me.
Last time, the students' focus was significantly lost when I danced around with the other docent while singing; instead, this time I had the students count to 7 while dancing in a circle, ending with a clap on the 8th beat. The counting certainly kept things more orderly by far. Next it was time to find a new partner, and I taught the students to say "Dasvadanya" (thank you) before sauntering off to find a new friend. We practiced without the music two more times, and then it was time! I quickly realized that I had taught the students at just a little more than half speed compared to the recording that I had, and in the future, I'll need to adjust the tempo of the recording and slow it down. The students struggled a little bit to keep up initially, but eventually they were able to keep up with the song reasonably well. We danced with the song only once (we only had time for one iteration), and even though there was some challenges with students finding partners that they felt comfortable dancing with, the students had a really good time with this. (Sasha I've discovered actually provides a decent amount of time for students to find a new partner, which was pretty helpful.) When the song was done, we talked about our experiences with the dance - and we also talked about how the tempo of the song changed at the end. | |
| Turkey In The Straw | Introduce song |
| The second class always seems to want to end with the Donut Song, and this week was no exception. But, before we indulged in the class's favorite tune, I told them that the Donut Song was really based on another tune - Turkey In The Straw. I didn't have a lot of time to teach the song, so I sang through the first traditional stanza, followed by the chorus. I got a lot of strange looks while singing it, especially the chorus, but then I mentioned that the chorus can actually change (what a concept!). I told them that the response to "Turkey in the Straw" was "Hee haw haw," while the response to "Turkey in the Hay" was "Hee Hay Hay". I then asked the what the response would be to "Turkey in the Sea", and after a bit of a pause someone shouted out "Hee hee hee!" I sang another variant of Turkey in the Straw ("I had me a chicken…"), and then I followed up with a chorus that included "Turkey in the sky", and "Turkey in the ground" (e.g. "Hee hound hound!"), and the kids responded correctly!
I of course ended with one last rendition of the Donut Song, which everyone loved as usual. | |
I do think that Oh My Goodness is going to work well as a spring sing song for the students, and so I'll plan on introducing more and more stanzas each week. I'll have to figure out another song when we return in April after the spring break.
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