Teaching Notes, 20141210

If you’re wondering why I skipped a week, it was because I had fallen ill right after Thanksgiving with a pretty bad fever. My fever broke the day (really the night) before I was supposed to teach last week, and I didn’t want to risk getting the kids sick, and so I waited a week. However, after the fever my voice pretty much disappeared, and even after a week of recovery, I still didn’t have my full vocal range back. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way.

I knew that I was going to use my iPod today, and so while the students were gathering around the carpet, I played the March of the Toy Soldiers for the students. One quarter to one half of the students always chime in with something that showed that they were familiar with the song - either they knew it was from the Nutcracker, or it involved a ballet, or it involved some sort of show. I’d use this song later, and I wanted those who were less familiar with the song to have heard it for a little bit.

Leaves Are Red and Yellow	Review song and sing about the cold crisp air
Today was a day before a large storm system was to sweep through the whole state, and so the plan was to sing this along with the crisp cold air lyrics. However, upon singing the song I discovered that I couldn’t really sing very high at all; that second line was unsingable at my usual class volume! I had to lightly falsetto this for the 3rd and 4th lines, but it was so poor (in my opinion) that I bailed on trying to sing about that cold air, and I moved on. I did intend on adding another line to the song, but I felt that the red/yellow addition was enough for today. So, I moved on…
Let’s Travel Down the Music Road	Warmup kids with solfege
My voice wasn’t about to suddenly regain its full strength between classes, and so for the second class, I decided to substitute this very short song. I did sing it lower than I would have liked to (and I practice this in the car first), but I still had to falsetto the higher notes. Fortunately, kindergarteners are pretty forgiving (even the 1st class and my horrendous performance) and the kids sang along fine. I added solfege, which the kids also happily followed.
March of the Toy Soldiers	Listen and find the pattern of the song
This is an activity that I’ve done several times during the holidays, where I play the march, followed by the three different sections, albeit one at a time. For each section I had the students describe how they felt when listening to the music. Now, for kinders, they definitely need a little more guidance and the answers aren’t as predictable as they would be for 1st or 2nd graders; I did steer them towards three distinct themes. I then had three students come up, one assigned to each of the themes, and then when I replayed the entire march, I wrote the students’ names (or initial) that corresponded to what the students were hearing. The class ends up with a ABACABA pattern; I don’t actually double the A’s; it makes for an unnecessarily long string. However, this also allowed me to introduce “chorus” (A), stanza (B), and bridge (C). Now, this is a bit of a stretch; the March has no words, and chorus/stanza are really concepts meant for songs with lyrics. However, I did want to emphasize the point that music has patterns, and like songs with choruses, the March seems to always come back to A. I then had the students recall “I Think You’re Wonderful” (Red Grammer) - a song that they have heard nearly every Wednesday at assembly; that song definitely has a chorus and a stanza (but no bridge), but it gave the students an example of patterns in a song.
Snowman Scale	Teach song, and movements
I started this by talking about the storm, how it meant that some parts of California were going to get snow, and that someone out there will be building a snowman soon. I had the students pretend they were a big snowman, and then I asked what they would use to decorate the snowman. The mention of the carrot nose then allowed me to introduce the little rabbit in the song, who was eager to eat that carrot nose. This song started out fine, but then around sol or la, my voice started giving out again, and I had to resort to a very quiet falsetto for the rest of the song. The snowman scale song is something that is meant to introduce the solfege body motions, particularly on the way down at the end of the song. The students did follow me down, but I don’t think that the motions really stuck.
Pony Macaroni	Teach song, zipper in movements
I segued into this song by asking the students who had a pet at home. We talked about a few animals (someone said that they had a baby tiger!), and eventually I mentioned to the class that once I imagined I had a pony… named Macaroni. Of course I received a lot of chuckles at this point, and so I simply broke out into song, with the kids echoing me. This was the first time that the students heard the song, and since I didn’t have a lot of time, I simply had the students trot around as if they were on a pony as I sang; I suddenly stopped at “stop” to see if the students followed. The found this to be a fun little challenge, so I substituted “walk” and “hop” for trotting during the 2nd and 3rd iterations of the song.
John the Rabbit	Review, sing more
With only the few minutes left, I talked more about animala, and I asked them about the rabbit that I used to know as a child. I also asked the students about the song and how it was sung, and even though not everyone remembered, I started singing, and the students responded. A children’s musical group named “Key Wilde and Mr. Clarke” have an amusing rendition of John The Rabbit, which includes stanzas dedicated to Ralph the Raccoon and Mike The Monkey. The kids absolutely loved these alternate versions, and even though it was clear that I was making all of this up (i.e. I probably didn’t have a raccoon burning down my attic when I was a child), it was a great way to end the day.

Even though I didn’t have much of a voice, this day turned out to be pretty good. The March of the Toy Soldiers always takes up a lot of time, but I felt that the kids picked up on forms in music; I’ll try to keep asking the students about the patterns that they hear when we introduce new songs.

Teaching Notes, K, 20141126

Today was the day before Thanksgiving, which meant that it was time to pull out all of the turkey songs! Yipeee!!!!

Leaves Are Red and Yellow	Review song and add one more line
I started singing the song, and after singing the first stanza, I had the students stand up if they were wearing red or yellow when we sang “red” or “yellow”. Today turned out to be crazy hat/hair day, which also meant that students had a little more leeway in what they could wear. We then re-sang the song with the red and yellow movements (basically standing up followed by sitting down), which brought some amusement to the students. I did intend on adding another line to the song, but I felt that the red/yellow addition was enough for today. So, I moved on…
5 Fat Turkeys	Have students follow hand motions, teach song by echo
I didn’t really have to segue anything here - I simply instructed the students (silently) to follow my hands - first I did some simple motions until I had a quorum of students’ attentions, and then I started making the hand-turkey. With the hand-turkey assembled, I simply started singing the song. But, before I started formally teaching the song (which is very short), I stopped to talk about the upcoming holiday and what people liked to eat. Despite the song’s obvious subject, I received a variety of good answers comprised of foods other than turkey. Eventually we talked about the turkey, and I asked the students which was the animal that didn’t really like Thanksgiving as much as we did. I then had them re-form the hand-turkey, and we covered the song in echo + motions. The song gave me another chance to teach them another ASL sign - tree, which we used in the song.
John the Rabbit	Get students to respond to each lines of the song
We talked more about the other kinds of foods, and this time I had them echo me (like we did months ago) in sol-mi for each food that they liked. For instance, a student would say that they liked potatoes, so I would ask in sol-mi “who likes potatoes?” And then, the students would respond in sol-mi “I like potatoes”. I told the students about how my family growing up liked to make soup out of vegetables in the garden, but there was always a pesky rabbit that I named “John” who would sneak in and eat vegetables right out of the garden. I then told the students that my mother would sing the song and I would sing along. Of course this is another entirely contrived story, but it did solve the problem where the response that I wanted the students to mimic was “yes ma’am”. (I am not a ma’am.) I told the students that I, as a small boy, would sing “yes ma’am” when my mother would sing a line, and with ukulele in hand, I started to sing the song. When we got to the end of the song, I told them that the last line would start with “No”, and so when that happened, the answer was a long “nooooooooo, ma’am”. We sang through one time through, and I think the students got this. I definitely want to re-use this next time, so I moved on from there.
Bee Bee Bumblebee	Review, compare rhythm vs beat, and then play the game
I started the students in a steady clap, and then I had the students sing Bee Bee in sol-mi. I then asked the students if I were clapping steadily or if I were clapping to the words. I reviewed the “beat” with the students, and I added the tidbit where the beat can start before the song and keep going after the song was over. I had the students try to compare the beat by clapping to the words; then, I introduced formally (finally!) “rhythm” to the students. Before playing the game, I had them listen to me clap either a rhythm or beat (using old songs like Bongo Joe, Oats Peas Beans, and even Five Fat Sausages), and I had them identify which one I was clapping. I would have to remind them about the guidelines each time (e.g. was I clapping to words), but the students started to get it. We’ll definitely revisit this during the rest of the year. We then proceeded to play the game with the ball again a few times.
5 Fat Turkeys	Reprise!
After we were done, to recover the students’ attention, I had them follow my hands again, and this time, I had them do the 5 Fat Turkey song one more time, this time with a turkey pointing the other way. I didn’t have to re-announce the song; to them it was spontaneous fun.
The Turkey Ran Away	Teach by immersion, zipper in a few other foods
I had the students remind me who didn’t like Thankgiving so much, and so I started singing this song all the way through. I then asked the students what other foods (yep, pretty much the same thing as before), and then I asked them what they could make of those foods. Slowly, we made our way through apple (pie), pumpkin (pie), potato (mash). For the first one I sang the song with the substitution, but then I had the students simply sing along with the other foods. It seemed to work pretty well.

I was pretty much out of time here. For the first class (for which I could have gone overtime, I wanted to have the kids try Keep The Kettle Boiling, but they seemed to be at their attention limit, so I backed out of that. For the second class, I also encountered the same thing, except that I was able to get the students to chant “1,2,3” while clapping before the bell rang. Alas, I’ll use that in a future class.

I ended the say with Make New Friends.