This was also the first class back from break, and so I definitely wanted to do a lot of different activities since it had been so long since our previous class. And so, I planned for a little bit of review and a lot of Halloween material. Like the last class (4 weeks ago), I also wanted to spend a little bit of time outside, but not for the whole class. Because the first class started inside while the second class started outside, I'll list the activities based on the order used in the first class
| Fine Friends Are Here | Jump right into the song |
| With the students on the carpet, I started singing the song, and when it came to the response, a few students remembered the tune, but most didn't remember the hand signs. However, by the 2nd response, the students, watching my hand signs, mostly recalled the motions. I sang through the song twice, and by the end of the 2nd iteration, the students pretty much had the response and hand signs down. We did this four weeks ago, and it was good that the students were able to recall their role. It's still too early I think to teach the stanzas to the song, but I think I can always use it to recapture the students' attention. | |
| Singing Costumes | Have students sing their costumes in sol-mi |
| I asked a student what they were, and when the student responded, I sang something like "He's Captain America" (replace with the costume as needed) in sol-mi, and I had the students echo me. The students of course were very happy sharing what their costumes were, and so I kept going on for nearly half the class. | |
| Halloween Surprise | Teach in chant form, then add song |
| One of the students in each class dressed up as a pumpkin or jack-o-lantern, and so it was easy to talk about pumpkins, and of course, the steps to carving a pumpkin, aka a pumpkin surprise. I did this with the second class during the previous class, and so for them, this was review, but I still did it from scratch (talking before singing), and it was just as fun as the first time. | |
| Bongo Joe | Teach song, get students to respond partially to each line |
| I didn't have a good segue into Bongo Joe, so I simply started singing the song. It's a short song, so I sang it twice, and during the 2nd time, I clapped the last three beats for each line, and b the 3rd line of the 2nd iteration, the students were mostly clapping along. I then asked the students to try filling in the blank, and I sang the song once more but omitting the last word of each song. Students were able to repeat "beat", "street", and "land", but no one remembered "grand", which probably is a word that kinders probably don't use very often. We did this twice through, and the students seemed to enjoy this, as it became a little game for them in order to remember just those four words.
I wanted to go outside for the next activity, and so I had the students quickly assemble a line, and I had them follow me out while I continued to sing Bongo Joe. | |
| It's A Very Good Day | Teach song (1st half), zipper in a few different reasons why it was a good day |
| Once we were all outside, we started marching around the circular outline formed by the outer edge of one of the play areas, and I started singing the song. We didn't cover this song with the first class, so I sang it in entirety one time through. I managed to get the students to gesture with their arms "Why?", and I had them do the gesture on cue as I sang the song again. It was time to modify the song, and so I changed it to "running through the wind", "jumping in the rain", and "flying through the clouds". We ended back with the original "playing in the sun", since after all it was a sunny day that day.
Unfortunately, not too far away, the preschool was having their Halloween parade, and that meant a lot of distraction and noise for my students (and probably for the preschoolers too). As such, I quickly led them back into the classroom after just this song; I used Marching Marching to get them back inside. | |
| 5 Little Pumpkins | Sing story |
| I talked to the students about Halloween again (which is very easy), and then I had them count with me with a hand from 1 to 5. With all 5 fingers and hand extended, and with all the students copying me, I started singing the song and continued with the associated motions. In both classes, there were students who were very eager to point out that they had sung the song before, and so I encouraged them to sing along. I actually never remembered exactly what the hand movements are for the last line of the first part (i.e. "ready for some fun"), and so I instead use ASL signs for "ready" and "fun", and so I took the time to teach the students those two signs. | |
| Fall Song | Immerse students into the song, add small responses |
| Since typically the students are in a blue and white uniform, this was really one of the few times when we can do something that involves the colors of the students' clothing. After singing through the song (the 1st stanza) one time, I had students who were wearing any sort of red to raise their hands when "red" was sung; similarly, I had students show were wearing yellow raise their hands when "yellow" was sung. Some students had both colors, and some had none. As we sang through with the color instructions, I then asked the students who were wearing neither red nor yellow to pretend to bite into a really big apple, and we paused the song to practice this a few times. This was similar to what I did during my very first class that I taught six years ago.
Since it was Halloween, I also then taught the students the "Noisy Crows" line with the scarecrow. I casually had the students flap their arms when singing the lines, but when it came time to sing "beware" for the scarecrow line, I had the students say in an eerie, low voice "Beware!". That was a lot of fun, and we all pretended to be frightened by the line. | |
| Highway Number One | Have students "drive" to the music |
| This was something that I only had time to do with the second class, and on top of that it was a back pocket item, something I didn't really intend to use unless I completed my lesson plan early. I normally have the students practice certain movements (e.g. slide together, wiggle), but since this was a back pocket item, I didn't prepare for this as well as I normally would have, and I couldn't remember all of the movements. Nonetheless, I then started the song and off we were driving.
This turned out to be more chaotic than I thought, and students were definitely driving into each other. I was able to get the class to quiet down and listen during each issuance of instructions, but it was still kind of nutty, and I could tell that some of the children weren't too happy about being pushed around. We took a bit of time talking about the activity after it had ended, including what worked, and what wasn't so good. It was actually a surprisingly good conversation, and I think some (albeit not all) understood that the crashing wasn't such a good idea. Students did ask to go again, but I'll leave that for another day. This probably is better suited for outside, and I did check to see that there was a power outlet accessible from the play area, which I'll use in the future. | |
| Victor Vito | Teach the responses in the chorus |
| We still had some time left, and so I decided to use this fun and reliable song. There's always a good chance that some of the students know this song from preschool, and in our case, we had about a quarter of the students recognize the song. This actually is a pretty good way to get students more experience doing partial echo, as the last line of the chorus is sung together. | |
I'll end up using Highway Number One and Victor Vito in my next class plan so that both classes end up knowing it.
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