| Down By The Sea | Lead students into class with recording in the background |
| The last (and only) time I had the class play with this song, I did it live. This time, I wanted to use it as a way to get the kids into the class, and so I used the recording by Red Grammer. Enough of the students remembered the beginning of the song such that they were able to do many of the motions with me, and by the 2nd stanza, we had everyone participating.
I wanted to find a way to get the students thinking about making a circle, and so I had four chairs on the ground, arranged in a square. Before I led the students into the class, I instructed them to stay on the outsides of the chairs. I suppose I really had a square rather than a circle, but nonetheless, I wanted the students on the perimeter rather than in the center of the room. The chairs mostly worked - they were impossible for the students to miss, and only a few students tried to meander into the inside of the chairs. There were a few students who would sometimes play with the chairs, but as resin-and-metal stackable school chairs go, the students weren't able to manufacture many distractions with the four chairs. | |
| Little Tommy Tinker | Revisit Song, change starting pitch, talk about articulation |
| Similar to two weeks ago, I started with doing the full-body solfege signs, and some students started calling out the note names while following my motions. I had the students try to sing the scale with me, and we did that up and down. The students still don't really sing the scale in tune as well as I would have hoped at this stage, but arguably we haven't spent a lot of time trying to do any sort of pitch training.
When it was time to sing the song, I expected most students to remember this song, and indeed most did. We sang it just once through, and then I asked the students what the first and last notes were. When they answered "Do", I talked about the importance of Do, and how most songs ended on Do, no matter what. When asked about the note that we ended on, a few students did say "C", and I told them while "C" might be the exact pitch, no matter what it always ended at Do - that gave me a great segue as I plucked a different note (it happened to be a D) on the ukulele, and I used that as a starting pitch to sing the song; the students followed me, as well as the same hand motions that I used before. Again, I asked the students what was the name of the last note, and this time everyone said "Do". We experimented with different starting pitches. Next, I asked the students if they remembered how we changed songs in previous weeks. People talked about changing speeds (great tim to remind the students about "tempo"), but none in either class remembered dynamics. After a quick mini review, I then asked the students to sing with me as I sang Tommy Tinker in (rather exaggerated) staccato. I didn't tell the students about that term yet - I just wanted to see how the students perceived the difference in texture. Some students though that the song was faster; some thought that I speaking louder (or, to some, softer). I sang it again in staccato one more time, and eventually a student remarked how I was singing in starts and stops, with blanks in between each sound. It was at that point when I introduced the term "staccato", and I had the students repeat it, in staccato, of course. We all then sang together the song in staccato. I did more or less the same kind of introduction to legato, and I had the students sing the song in exaggerated legato. The 3rd articulation was marcato (accent), and I had a paper with "marcato" on it, with an accent over the "ca". I wanted to emphasize how marcato was a strong, louder sound for only one syllable or note, and so while the students sang Tommy Tinker, I'd raise the paper to signal for the students to emphasize the next syllable. The students seemed to get the hang of it after just one iteration of Tommy Tinker, and a few marcatos thrown in. | |
| Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers | Revisit song, and cover the 2nd part of the song |
| This song is still my target #2 song for the spring sing, so it was important for me to cover the rest of the song. I simply took my ukulele, started strumming, and then starting singing the stanza, hoping that the students would follow me. Some did, and by the time the stanza reached "rubber baby buggy bumpers" and in fact, they did without the lyrics displayed on the overhead. By the time it was ready to sing a chorus, I displayed the 2nd chorus on the overhead, and walked the class in echo through the 2nd chorus. The 2nd chorus, like the first, had several additional tongue twisters, and the children enjoyed trying to say. Near the end of the chorus is a line that, in the recording, has an extended note, and so I decided to introduce casually the fermata, and I had the students practice singing an extended note, ending at my signal.
We then sang through the entire song from start to finish, again practicing the fermata'ed note, as well as the ending. The ending that I had the students use was nearly the same as the ending to the Donut Song (which, surprisingly, few students recognized), but it made it easy for the students to learn. | |
At some point, I do want to turn Tommy Tinker into a round. I also want to get the students to try a few more dances, since we do have the space for it. I just hope I have enough time, given that I'll be covering both spring sing songs again the next time I teach.
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