| Let’s Travel Down the Music Road (first class | Teach song and body solfege |
| I did this song with the second class during the previous week, but not with the first class, so I decided to teach this as an opener. It’s a very short song, and the students were able to follow the tune and words quickly. The body solfege took a few more repetitions, but the students sort of followed it. To keep things fresh, I varied the volume or timbre (e.g. staccato). | |
| Pony Macaroni (first class) | Review with body solfege |
| I asked the students if they remembered what the name of my pony was, and once they shouted out the name, I started singing the song once through. However, before I got to “he trots”… I then had the students follow me in body solfege while singing. The students followed ok - I did have to slow down the song significantly so that they could keep up. The song sped up when we did the “trot” (I had the students trot around the room when we got to this point), but we slowed back down for the end of the song.
We did this one more time, allowing the pony to “walk” around. But it was time to move on. | |
| Jingle Bells with Instruments (first class) | Have students play to the song |
| So, before I get into this part, I do want to note that my takeaway from this part is that I learned how not to get students to play to the song. My goal was to have the students all playing instruments; I had asset of tone bells (three chords for the song, a total of nine bells), some jingling bells, some tambourines, and some tone blocks, and I started passing out instruments, one kind at a time. For instance, I would pass out the tambourines, get the students to try playing them (e.g. play four beats in unison), and then I’d repeat the process with another set of instruments. However, each time the room would get noisier and noisier, and it became tremendously difficult to get the students to focus; many just wanted to keep playing their instruments and making sounds.
This became significantly more challenging when I brought out the tone bells. They are loud, and I brought them out three at a time, making the volume acceleration hard to manage. Eventually the whole room was filled with 25 students hammering away at their instruments. Today was really the last day before break, and I didn’t want to come down hard on them, and so I let them have their fun for a minute, and then I started collecting the instruments while singing Jingle Bells. Some students followed my singing, but most were focused on their instruments until they put it in the bags. Obviously I didn’t achieve what I wanted to do, but the students definitely had a lot of fun. | |
| Mail Myself To You (second class) | Teach song in echo, and try to get to at least the second stanza |
| I had this song planned for the first class in case I had extra time left over after Jingle Bells. However, when I entered the second classroom, there was work being done to the projector right above the carpeted area. As a result, the students had to stay at their desks temporarily. I figured I’d give this song a shot, as it involves a fair amount of movement, and with the students all scattered around, they had plenty of space. I started with asking the students how they would mail a present to someone, since it was the time for presents. Amongst other ideas, we talked about wrapping up a present, gluing or taping the paper down, putting stamps on, and then putting it in the mailbox. I then told the students that my mother would say that the best present that she ever got was me - I asked the students if their parents ever said something similar, and fortunately some nodded while others were really confused or surprised at the idea. And so, I walked the students through the same steps again.
It was time to sing. I had the students echo my words and movements, and we covered the first stanza. I then asked the students about adding more to the present, in particular, ribbons and bows, and climbing into the mailbox. We then echoed the 2nd stanza, followed by the first stanza. | |
| Jingle Bells (second class) | Try getting the class playing instruments to the song |
| So, this time, I had the students regather on the carpet (the maintenance had finished), and I had one student come up. I gave that student an ‘E’ tone bell (from the C-chord group), and we practiced very quickly playing on the first of every beat. I encouraged the students to clap the beat, which allowed me to do a quick review of beat vs. rhythm with the students. Next, I then had another student come up, and I gave her the “F” of the ‘F’ chord, and then I gave the another student a ‘D’ bell for the ‘G’ chord group. Finally, I reviewed with the students how songs had patterns, and then I wrote out a pattern the board, which was the equivalent of E-E-E-E-F-E-D-D, but using the first names of the students. But, before we could play the instruments, I then passed out a set of tone blocks for some of the students. It was time to play, and so I first had the tone block students (as well as any willing clappers) start a beat, and then I pointed to each tone bell student when it was time to play.
It actually worked pretty well; the tone bells were together, while the rest of the students kept a reasonable beat. I proceeded to add the second half of the pattern: E-E-E-E-F-E-D-E, which was almost the same. I had the students explore how different the two halves of the song were different, which didn’t take long. But again, before we played the patterns together, I passed out tambourines out, followed by jingle bells. At this point, the students had an inkling of what the song was. We went through it one more time, and then I had conveniently six students left without instruments, whom I called up to fill out the chords with additional tone bells. Everyone had an instrument, and so we proceeded to sing and play the song! This worked out remarkably well - the students played together reasonably well, everyone had an instrument, and the students were most importantly having a good time. The recess bell rang in the middle of the song, but we still finished strong. | |
No comments:
Post a Comment