Teaching Notes, 20131120

This week was the only week in November that I was scheduled to teach, and so I wanted to include some references to Thanksgiving. At the same time, I also wanted to try a new approach to teaching rhythm.

Fanfare for the Common Man	Have students listen and move to the music
I had yet to have the students listen to famous pieces of music, and so it was time to have them hear a piece of significance. Originally this was going to be the Flight of the Bumblebee, but since the first class' students were slowly making their way over to the carpeted area and forming a circle under the direction of the teacher, I decided to go with Fanfare, which starts slowly and works well when the students are still gathering together. I sat in the middle of the circle and made motions with the music - hands going up with the higher pitched trumpets, and tapping the ground when the drums were booming. The students got the idea mid-way through the song, which was what I was hoping for. When the song was nearly done, I had the students slowly stand up. When the song was over, I asked the students what they heard - some described highs, lows, and booms, while some named some of the instruments (or added their own instruments) featured in the recording. I also asked them when I was raising my hands or tapping the ground, and the students were able to provide good answers - they were really following me and making the connection.
5 Fat Turkeys	Teach motions and words in echo
I started with holding my hands up and waiting for students to copy me. I then slowly turned or contorted my hands to make a two-handed turkey, and then I started to sing the song. The song has hand/arm motions for every line, and I made the gestures with enthusiasm so that the students knew that they should follow my motions. I then proceeded to teach the song with motions in echo, one line at a time. We did this twice through, and then we tried singing through all at once. I decided I'd surprise the students later with this song…
The Turkey Ran Away	Sing the song and zipper in other foods
We first talked a little bit about different foods from Thanksgiving (apple pie, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, etc.). I then pointed out that 5 Fat Turkeys was a song about turkeys running way from the dinner table. That allowed me to sing The Turkey Ran Away as a natural segue. I had the students echo me one more time through, after which I started substituting the other foods. I thought the students got the hang of the song pretty quickly. It's a short song, and each new stanza substitutes two different terms, which was manageable even for the kindergarteners.
Keep The Kettle Boiling	Teach song, get students to respond partially to each line
I usually do this song early in the year so that I can learn the students' names, but with all of the songs regarding food, I felt that this was a good thing to try now. I had to remind the students to remain on the outside of the carpet ("pot"), and that even though it's a big pot, only one person could be in the pot at the same time, since adding more could splash the soup everywhere. It took a little bit of reminding the students about the one-person limit, but the limit also made it easy to explain that someone had to jump out before someone else could jump in. This activity takes a lot of time, and so we had to speed things up as we went along. However, since this isn't week 1, the students seemed comfortable enough to go at a pace faster than had we been doing this during the early part of the school year.
Fall Song	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	Review and introduce a new line
I started singing the first line ("red and yellow"), and the students remembered the song before I finished, and so I moved on to a new line: "the air is crisp and colder…". This was pretty easy to teach; we sang it twice, and ended with the first stanza. I didn't want to take all that long, but it served as a nice distraction for…
5 Fat Turkeys	Jump right into the song
After we finished the Fall Song, I simply held my hands out again, similar to what I did for 5 Fat Turkeys the first time around, and then after forming the two hand turkey, we sang the song together. Most of the students remembered the song enough to sing with me, and nearly all followed the hand motions.
Rhythm Time	Have students follow me with various combinations of quarter notes and quarter rests
Before I get into this part of the class, I wanted to note that I ended up borrowing a technique from my own child's piano teacher for reaching basic rhythms. I had the students count to four, and then after they repeated my count in the same tempo, I stamped my feet while counting to four. The kids copied me as well pretty easily. I then followed up with four claps after the four counted stamps, which the students copied me just as easily. I then wrote out for vertical lines on the board, and I repeated the stamp-clap 4 count pairs - which the students echoed again. After reconfirming with the students that there were four stamps, four claps, and four lines on the board, I proceeded to erase the last line. I then still did the four count stamp, but I followed up with only three claps, and when the students echoed me this time, about half of them clapped that fourth clap (which I did not do). Some students gleefully noted that they could still see the line (the dry erase mark sort of smeared), and so I ended up drawing a squiggle, serendipitously looking like a quarter rest. I instructed the students to clap on the straight lines. We proceeded with different patterns: CCrC, CrCC, CrCr, CrrC, rCCC. That last one is always one of the more difficult patterns since the first clap/beat is a rest. In order to help the students do nothing during the rest, I had the students put their hands out during the squiggles. I didn't talk about quarter notes, or rests for that matter; we just were clapping on the straight lines. If I feel the students are ready for it, I might talk about the rhythms using more music-like terms, but in the meantime, it's just a clapping game to the students.
Deep And Wide	Have students learn songs and delete words
I had a little bit of time at the end of the 2nd class, and so I pulled this from the backpocket stash. At first I would just do the hand motions - no words, no singing - and I just had the kids follow the motions. I then started singing the song with the motions. Only a few students noted that they knew the song from before, but it's such a short and easy song to learn that the kids really didn't have a problem learning the song. This was important, since I then asked them to not sing a particular word ("wide"); as we sang through it, I think a little less than half the class remembered to avoid singing the song. We continued with deleting river, and deep. I didn't want to have the kids try to work with multiple deleted words quite yet. But, it seemed like the students handled the challenge pretty well, as at the last iteration, perhaps only one or two students continued to sing the deleted word, particularly near the end of the song.

This class was a lot of fun, and I think the students fared well despite having zero chances of going outside due to inclement weather. I also used the backpocket again today; in the next few classes, I'll want to cover the songs and other material that only the 2nd class saw.