Teaching Notes, K, 20141119

I decided again to try to follow the regular lesson plan again for this week, with a just the tiniest bit of review.

Fine Friends Are Here	Review song and add the bridge
I started singing the song, expecting the students to echo the 2nd half of each line, but instead, they started to sing along with me. About a third remembered the hand signs the first time around, and then by the end of the song most of the class was doing the signs. I then told them that it might rain, and that the next part of the song sang about a thunderstorm - and then, I proceeded to sing the bridge. I had the students then echo the bridge with me; after the bridge was completed, I asked them what part of the song should come next, and they simply fell back to singing the original song.
Bee Bee Bumblebee	Reprise chant with dynamics, and then play the game again
This exercise was pretty simple - once I had the students in a circle, I started chanting, and the students followed. I had them also clap the beat while chanting. Next, I asked them about how we chanted before, and we quickly reviewed what “staccato” meant. I then told them that I wanted to teach them more Italian, so I wrote the word “piano” at one end of the whiteboard. We covered what it meant, and I had the students do the chant in piano; even if they emphasized the last word, it was fine. Of course, I then had to teach them what “forte” meant, which was pretty easy. For the next part, I had the students chant while I pointed to piano or forte. The first time, I simply alternated line by line, changing the dynamics each time. However, the second time, I was a bit more random, and the students had a fun time trying to follow, even if there was a delay before they adjusted to where I was pointing. To cap this off, I had the students play the game with passing the tennis ball around again, but this time, I had the students concentrate on passing the ball when we would ordinarily have clapped. We played 4 rounds of the game this time around before moving on.
Snail, Snail	Teach song, then lead students in a trip around the room
I first hummed the Snail song, and had the students hum with me. Then, I had them guess what kind of animal it was, but to help them out, I asked them if the song was slow or fast, high or low, and soft or loud, characteristics that also matched the animal. There were only so many musical clues that one could give before I had to provide more obvious clues, such as the house, and the spiral. When the students guessed correctly, I then had them sing the words to the song. At this point, I was going to lead the students into a spiral. I first tried this with the first class, but it only led to chaos, and I quickly punted. For the second class, I decided to not go into a spiral immediately, as students wanted to take each step closer to me, rather than follow whomever was in front of them. And so, I had the students join hands, and while singing the song, I led the students away from the carpet, around the classroom, and then eventually back to the carpet where I then led them into the spiral that goes into itself and then leads out. It actually worked pretty well; while the students didn’t quite see we were walking in a spiral, they could tell we were somehow walking amongst ourselves and we seemed to magically make our way out of a knot without dropping hands. I originally was going to do hand signs for the songs but I forgot. Oops.
Identify animals in instruments	Play various classical pieces meant to represent animals
I told the students that they were good at identifying animals from songs, and so I asked them to think of what animal they were hearing when I played Vivaldi’s spring (first movement). It took a bit of time, but eventually I got a few good answers - birds (of various types), insects, and other things that were either small or could fly. This musical piece also has changing dynamics and so I had the students tell me when the volume changed and in which direction (piano or forte). I followed up with playing other pieces, this time from Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals. This took a little bit of work for the first two pieces (Lion, Chickens), and I so ended with the Cuckoo, which was guessed correctly and also required the students to listen intently.
Goodbye My Friends	Sing in different volume or style
It was time to end already, but I wanted to change the song a bit, and so I had one class sing in piano, which worked fine. I had the other class chant in staccato, which the students also enjoyed.

I was hoping to have the students alternating chants and singing for songs that they previously covered, but I didn’t really have much time to do so. I’ll try to do some of that next week. However, next week is also the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so I’ll have to make sure I cover some of the holiday material that is always so much fun to teach.