Teaching Notes, 20131204

For today’s class, I wanted to build on songs that we covered as backpocket items so that both classes would be a little more equal. I also wanted to spend time with music from the Nutcracker, as the students had just seen a live production of the ballet the day before. It was also getting cold, and so if there was the opportunity to sing about something involving snow, I’ll take it.

March of the Toy Soldiers	Have students listen to the music as they gathered
I turned on the song in the background as the students gathered onto the carpet. Plenty of students knew where the song was from, and particularly with the second class, the students wanted to keep moving to the music. And so, I started marching to the music, which also got the students following my lead happily. I didn’t really plan on diving into the music just yet, but I wanted to seed the music in their minds for later…
Let’s All Travel Down the Music Road	Teach song with hand solfege
Similar to Fine Friends Are Here, I wanted to get the students to do more hand solfege, even though I have yet to really introduce why the students are making the motions, nor connect the motions with specific pitches. I started singing and signing through twice, and then I instructed the students to follow my hand signals and not to worry so much about the words yet. After going through the song much more slowly, the students started singing with me (it’s an easy song). We did this two more times through.
March of the Toy Soldiers	Listen to the three different patterns and recognize them
I asked the students if they recognized the song that they heard when they gathered around the carpet, and plenty of the students knew that the song was from the Nutcracker. I then told the students to listen to the first of three different “forms” found in the song. After playing that snippet, I asked the students how they felt as they listened - I got a really wide range of answers, but there was convergence around “happy”, or “marching” or “walking”. I did the same thing with the other two distinct snippets of the march, and again I asked them how they felt; for the second snippet, the students offered “mad”, or “fighting”, and for the third snippet, students offered “running”, “scared”. I then asked three students to come up, and I assigned each student to a one of the three students. Then, I asked the students to listen to the whole march, but also indicate which student’s snippet was being played. As the song progressed, I put a check mark next to the student’s name after verifying with the class. In past years, I’d write the student’s name or initial, and so if you end up doing something along those lines, it helps to have three children with three different first initials. Students eventually realized that the third pattern wasn’t played anywhere as often as the first pattern. They also noticed that the song went from 1st pattern to 2nd pattern to 1st pattern during the early and late parts of the song. I’ve done something similar with older kids in past years, and it was really refreshing to see the kindergarteners have so much fun with this.
Highway Number One	Introduce movements, then execute song
Highway Number One was a backpocket item that I did with the second class, and it sort of led to a bit of bedlam, as I didn’t really prep the students with the activities. This time, I deliberately spent a lot of time providing background on the song (where is Australia? what is highway number one? how long is it?, etc.). We also talked about what parents need to do when they drive (e.g. pay attention, watch for others), and the problems that arise when one crashes. I think I mentioned to the students not to crash several times using different encouraging words each time. I then had the students practice different movements that the song mentions. When it came to running, naturally some of the students gleefully took that as license to run and crash, and thus I had to remind the students again about not crashing, and how crashing meant that you no longer had a car and had to sit out. That seemed to strike a nerve in some, but what seemed to help the most is that I had the students practice jumping and running in place. Running in place for kindergarteners isn’t exactly natural, and so we practiced this a bit (e.g. “look down at your space, and then make sure you end up there”). When it was time to start the song, I told the students that they had to keep listening for instructions, just as if they were driving a real car (not exactly typical, but it still made sense to the kinders). As we started moving, students got a bit rowdy, but fortunately HNO has breaks frequent enough that I was able to get the students to freeze and listen for instructions. Having practiced the movements in advance helped, and by the time we were done, the students all were asking to do it again. Of course, you have to keep them wanting more for next time…’
Things I am Thankful For	Teach song, zipper in things
During the first class, there was a planned lockdown drill, which means that students had to sit quietly on the carpet, the lights were turned down, the doors were locked, and we had to be relatively quiet. This actually took place before HNO for that class, and so I inserted Things for the lockdown. With the students already hushed, I started singing the song quietly, and when it came to the 2nd half of the song, I made gestures with my hands and arms for the students to follow. This fit perfectly as a good lockdown drill song! I had the students practice the gestures with me and we went over the four things mentioned during that 2nd half of the song. I then sang the song one more time through, and a few students followed me either singing or moving (or both). Originally I wasn’t planning on zippering into the song, but with the lockdown practice, I figured I might as well try, and the students did a good job. Thanksgiving wasn’t all that long ago, and so it was easy to ask the students what they were thankful for during the holidays. We were able to come up with either ASL signs or simple signs for each of the ideas that the students came up with, and we then sang along. I didn’t want to get too carried away with the ideas, so we did the zippering for only one iteration of the song (three items).
Snowman Scale	Sing scale with signs and body solfege
It was cold, and so we talked about snow, building snowmen, what snowmen had (carrot nose, etc.), and then I sang the song with some motions. While the students didn’t sing with me, they tried to mimic my motions, which was all fine for me. The end of the song features a downward scale, and for that I showed the students body-solfege, which some also tried to follow. I didn’t have a lot of time left, and so I simply sang slowly through the song one more time, although this time the kids echoed me after each line.

The students I thought did really well this time around, especially with an activity like Highway Number One on the schedule. I was sort of thinking of doing more rhythm steps and claps, but I’ll do that next time.