Teaching Notes, 20150114

We’re back from break, and when preparing for today’s lesson, I really felt that I was able to take advantage of last year’s lesson plans for January as well as the sample lesson plans from MfM; it took me less than an hour to prepare and practice the lesson plan.

Today’s lesson had a vacation/travel theme to it, which was deliberate since most of the class traveled somewhere during the break. I did want to do something related to MLK Day (which is next Monday), but I didn’t want to get too deep into the history of the holiday.
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I’m in the Mood for Singing	Review song
I used this as an opener again. Few students remembered how to sing the response, so I sang this once through, and then I prompted the students as to how to respond. I didn’t want to get too deep into this song since it was meant to be just an opener, so I moved on.
Down By The Sea(Red Grammar)	Review with body solfege
I asked the students if they had gone somewhere during the break. I received a large variety of answers, some near and some very far. I then told them that I had gone to a place where there was a beach. I talked about jumping in the waves, and I had the students do the wave motion. We proceeded to cover each stage of the song, and then I started keeping a beat while snapping my fingers. I asked the students to snap with me, and those who couldn’t snap could clap lightly instead. I then started singing the song, and at each point when we covered a movement that we had reviewed, I prompted the students to do the motion. The rest of the song followed predictably, and I’m pretty sure the students had a good time with this.
Mail Myself To You	Teach song, sing!
I didn’t cover this with the first class, and so I got to teach this from scratch to those students. Similar to last week with the second class, I talked about presents, and I had the students mimic movements for parts of the first two stanzas. This time, however, I was able to cover the entire song, as I had more time compared to last week and the second class. The second class this time might have gone a bit faster, but not appreciably so, and we were able to cover the song in A-B-A-C-A-D-A fashion.
Here We Go A Riding On A Train	Teach song, sing!
I had the students return to the subject of travel, and I asked if any had been on various modes of transportation over the break: car, bus, plane, train. I didn’t expect many to choose the train, and indeed no one raised their hand for the train. I then asked them things about the train, in the order of the song, e.g. “what sound to you hear when the train is ready to leave”. I then had the students echo the entire song with me, starting with the dings (“not 1, not 2, but 8!”), followed by “all aboard”. I then had the students keep a beat at “choo”, starting slowly but then accelerating moderately. With the beat established, I had the students echo me with the line “Here we go…”. The clickety-clacks were also taught through echo, and it seemed like the kids awoke a bit more at that part of the song. I covered this only one time, as this is something I want to expand on for next week, with instruments.
Get On Board	Immerse students, have them focus on movements
I told the students that I once saw a train just for kids, and without explaining much more, I simply dove right into the song. While moving my arms like the wheels of the train, I asked the students to simply mimic my movements. We did the first half of the song twice, and then I had the students continue to mimic my movements while I sang slowly the second part of the song. The second part is of course more complex, and I had to walk them through the motions a few times before we could get it to near full speed. There is a dance that goes along with this song, and I wanted to cover that next week. As such, I didn’t spend all that much time on this song.
The World Is Big	Teach by echo
It was about a year since Pete Seeger passed away, and one year ago during last year’s MLK class, I taught this song. After the chaos of Get On Board, this song was a good way to calm the class back down. I brought out my ukulele and we sang the song echoing large parts of the chorus and echoing each individual line of the stanza. The regular song naturally has an echoed stanza, which made the resulting product very similar to the way the song was meant to be sung.

Class ended with the familiar tune of “Goodbye My Friends Goodbye”. I have a few items that I definitely want to revisit for next week, which means that my plan for next week is already half complete!