Teaching Notes, 20140522

Today, I wanted to focus mostly on material for the kids’ spring sing, but I still had to find a way to do it and make it seem like it wasn’t a repetitive chore. I had also just completed a workshop with other MfM instructors about the use of ukuleles in the classroom, and so since I hadn’t been using it very much this year, I made it a point to play the uke again during class.

Today also featured a sunny day that wasn’t too hot, so I wanted to take the students outside for a bit. Similar to past classes that were partially outside, I had the second class do its outside portion first before going inside.

Teaching Peace	Get students singing as they gather
Teaching Peace is something the students all across the school have been singing during weekly assemblies, and so it was easy to get the students to sing. I didn’t really have to do any echoing until we got to the stanzas, and even then a lot of the students were able to sing along to this not-so brand new song. The only times when I had to emphasize parts of the song was when the students had “learned” to sing words that sounded close, but weren’t quite exactly what Red Grammar had intended. Anyhow, this was my chance to get the ukulele back into the class for a bit, and since I didn’t have to focus much on getting the students to sing with me, I could strum pretty vigorously. The students even were aware of the “sound-off” part, and they definitely liked the idea of marching to the song (some got up and did exactly that). Anyhow, as a warmup song, this was great.
Hole In The Bucket	Practice singing in call-answer
The students had been practicing this with the other music teacher on the off weeks, so I didn’t have to spend much time introducing anything. However, I did want to make things a bit easier, so I had pre-printed out sheets, each with a key word (or words) for a particular line in the song; for instance “straw” or “cut it”. The Henry parts were printed in dark blue, while the Liza parts were printed in red; plus, I had them separated into a Henry stack and a Liza stack, and in the order the words would appear in the song. Before we started singing, however, and even before I made it clear what was the next activity, I simply had the students read off all of the Henry words (in order), followed by the Liza words (in order). Of course, by the end of the Henry stack, the students knew what was going on. With the help of the teacher, we then directed the students to sing, given a key word or words, starting with the Henrys (boys). We were able to sing through this quite easily with the cue cards (coupled with the students’ pre-existing familiarity with the song), and so this was indeed a pretty easy activity. I did notice that we had a lot more Lizas in both classes compared to the Henrys.
I’m a Tall Tall Tree	Review, do movements and sing
I didn’t have a natural segue from the previous song to this one, so I simply asked the students if they were still growing things. Just like two weeks ago, we talked about the variety of things that the kids were growing in their backyards. Some mentioned tree fruits, and so I asked the students what kind of plant was growing apples, pears, and cherries. That gave me the window to start reviewing this song, starting with the roots, trunk, and branches (just like last time). The great thing is that at this age, you can pretty much follow almost exactly the same plan the last time, and the students will still enjoy it just like the first time, and the familiarity only makes the activity go faster. I walked the students through the first three seasons of the song (I like to leave winter as a nice surprise), and that allowed me to start singing from the beginning; the students quickly sang along. We sang through it just one whole time; there wasn’t a need to review it again today.
Tulip Song	Talk about growing a flower, teach motions, and then song
The Tulip Song is another song planned for the spring sing, and it turns out that the first class wasn’t familiar with the song. So, continuing with the garden motif, I then turned the students’ attention to planting things other than trees, namely flowers. I showed them the “motion” of representing a flower bud growing out of the soil that is part of the song, along with the other motions that are part of the song. Then I had the students echo me singing the song while doing some of the motions. At this point of the year, it is actually pretty easy to get the students to echo me, especially when talking about plants, since every kindergartener likes to plant things. We did this song twice through, and then, I had the students hum the tune while moving my hands either up or down when the song’s melody was going up or down. Ignoring the minor variations in each line, the song basically goes up-down-up-down, and I had the students explore this a bit by also having them move their hands up and down to the melody.
Plant A Little Seed	Review song and motions
Plant A Little Seed is not one of the show songs, but it’s such an easy followup to the other two songs, and the students hadn’t seen it for two weeks, so we spent time reviewing the song. In fact, the activity was exactly like two weeks ago, with the exception that we were moving a lot faster. But, again, at this point of the year, songs of this caliber go really quickly.
Razzama Tazzama	Immerse students into the song
Razzama Tazzama is something that works great for kinders, and I can’t believe I didn’t use this until now. This activity doesn’t require much introduction; I just had the students practice a simple four-beat clap/tap pattern, and then I started the song. The kids just followed along, and they had a great time with this. I have to remember to do this one last time before the year ends.
The More We Get Together	Review, and sing along
I had the students practice a 3-beat pattern next, and then I started singing the song. Obviously the children knew the song from past classes, and so this became a happy review. We changed the lyrics to clapping, then dancing, while also changing the clap pattern and having the students dance around in place.

It’s becoming clear that the students are feeling really comfortable with the show material, which made for a very easy lesson. Even the first class, which tends to be more raucous did well today, allowing the teacher to release the students a few minutes early for recess.

Teaching Notes, 20140507

In about a month, the students are going to be performing during the school’s open house. Even though I won’t be able to be there (I’ll be out of town), I do want to help prepare the children, which basically means that half of the day going forward is going to be used up covering the show songs. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for new material, and so for the remaining classes I’ll have to be pretty picky with what I have the students do.

Today also featured a sunny day that wasn’t too hot, so I wanted to take the students outside for a bit. Similar to past classes that were partially outside, I had the second class do its outside portion first before going inside.

My Bonnie	Get students singing as they gather
The students for the first class as they gathered around the carpet. The students really know this song now, so it was an easy song to get them started. I arranged the students in a circle around the carpet, and I had them remain standing.
Aloha Kakahiaka	Have students sing/hula to song
Each May I usually do something Hawaiian-related, and while I introduced the students to the ukulele before spring break, the song I used then didn’t go so well back in April. I’ve used Aloha Kakahiaka a few times in the past with the younger students, and it’s a great song for the Kinders. I started with asking the students if they went anywhere for break. No one mentioned Hawaii, and so I talked about how I had visited Hawaii during a past break, and then I had the students say “Aloha” a few times, once with a big Hawaiian belly voice. I had a MFM staff member observe this day, and so naturally I had the students give a big Aloha to her. (During the second class, I had the students give big Aloha to the other parent helper.) I then proceeded to have the students practice saying “Kakahiaka” and how Aloha Kakahiaka meant “good morning”. I proceeded to walk the students through Aloha ‘Auinala (good afternoon) and Aloha Ahiahi (good night), along with appropriate signs (ASL “morning”, making a sun with arms overhead, and hands together sleeping for night). Next I had the students practice a very simple hula motion with arms for “Aloha”, extending one arm, followed by another arm. “To you” shows up in the song several times, and so I had them practice a motion where both hands start at the hands and then extend away from the body. It was time to sing, and so I had the students simply sign and sort of sing along with me very slowly. The students were able to keep up pretty well. However, this exercise took a lot of time and I didn’t do it once through more than once.
Plant a Little Seed	Teach song by immersion, with movements
I didn’t really have a natural transition for this song, so after we completed Aloha Kakahiaka, I simply asked the students out of the blue if it was winter. Of course it wasn’t, and I kept asking about other incorrect seasons until the students collectively were shouting (in a nice way) “spring” to me. I then told the students that in springtime, it was a good time to plant things, and so I pretended to plant a seed into the floor; I asked the students to do the same. I then asked the students what to do next in order to make the seed grow, and while some students mentioned the need for sunshine, others noted that you needed water, and so I proceeded (along with the students) to water the imaginary seed. We proceeded through the rest of the song this way without singing, but instead acting out the pieces all the way up to the bees (which they had a lot of fun with). That was seed #1; for seed #2, I then had the students sing via echo each of the lines while performing the motions. At the end of seed #2, I then had the students do a descending body-solfege scale with the ending line (“spring flowers smell so beautiful”). We did all of this one more time through. I thought the students were able to follow pretty well, and they clearly remembered the body-solfege movements, even if they couldn’t recall why they remembered them.
Tree Song	Teach song and movements via echo
Transitioning from Plant a Little Seed to the Tree Song is very easy; all I had to do was to suggest to the students that my seed was meant to grow a tree. With that, it is pretty easy to do this exercise. I did this one season at a time, asking the students what was the next season, and then talking to the students about the activity (e.g. bending with the wind, etc.). This song sort of teaches itself, and the kids had no problems with this, even though it was the first time that they had sung it. This song starts and ends with spring, and so I used it to remind the students that spring would come again.
Boanopstekker	Review movements, retry dance with recording
Similar to past classes, I had the students sing My Bonnie while “rowing” to the outside. At this point, I had the students practice the same motions to the dance as they did in a past class - walking and counting to 8, walking to the center, waving, clapping, and walking back out. Knowing that the last time I did this dance I had students racing across the middle of the circle, I had the students practice taking tiny steps into the circle, which most (not all) did well. When it was time to play the music, the students were pretty ready to try it out, and they did quite well with it, even when I made a mistake and forgot to have the students walk in a circle after coming out.
The More We Get Together	Review song
The students had heard this song before, but since it was one of the songs that they will be performing next month (along with the Tree Song), I wanted to have the students practice this a bit. During the first class, I had very little time up to this point, so once Bonanopstekker ended, I immediately started to sing the song, and most of the students joined in seamlessly. After the first iteration, I had the students practice (while standing) a tap-clap-clap triplet pattern, which they did easily. I quickly got them to do the pattern continuously, and then I started singing “the more we clap together…”. During each iteration of the song I made it clear that during the middle lines they were gesture to themselves or away from them (e.g. “my friends are your friends…”); most followed well. The students happen to know this song in Mandarin, and perhaps they may end up singing it in both languages during the show.

The other song that is being planned for the Spring Show is There’s a Hole In The Bucket, but since I had planned for some outside time, I felt that I’d leave the Bucket for another class.