Teaching Notes, 20150211

Today was the class closest to Valentine's Day, and I always plan something special for the kids. This time, I wanted to have the children try "Hey Betty Martin" outside, as it could be somewhat related to the holiday. I also wanted to try squeezing in another dance that has been successful in the past. Fortunately, the weather was cooperating for the dance (not necessarily for the drought) and so why not dance?

I'm in the Mood for Singing	Review and warm up
The students are slowly remembering more of this song; I was able to have a few of them respond correctly particularly on the 3rd and 4th responses, which always provide the most confusion. After going through one iteration of the song, I reviewed it again to emphasize those 3rd and 4th responses. Next, I wanted to get the students used to forming a circle, and so using the colors of the carpet where they sat as their guide, I instructed the students based on those carpet colors to move to one of the sides of the carpet, forming a circle (really a rectangle). Before they started to move, however, I challenged them to try to find their space by the time we finished the song. And so, I started singing the song, and the children migrated quickly over to their spots.
My Bonnie	Teach, get students clapping in 3
I wanted the students to get used to clapping to this song, and so first I had them echo a pat-clap-clap pattern. I then had them do it in 6, and then I had them echo me again in 3; this mostly eliminated the phantom 4th beat that showed up during the first echo. Next, I had the students do the pattern continuously, and then I started singing the song, one time through. One gets the usual questions "who is Bonnie", "my bunny lies over the ocean?" What I did notice, however, is that clapping every beat is actually a lot for the kindergarteners, unless you were to slow down the song to a crawl. Anyhow, this song is pretty easy to teach, although I had the students sing the entire song one more time. Next, I had them play a game where they stood up (or sat down, toggling their position) whenever they heard "Bonnie". The kids absolutely loved that. Since the students seemed to master that game easily, I next had the students toggle their position whenever they heard a word that started with the letter "b". That was total fun - I did have to slow down the song ("bring back my Bonnie"), but the kids thoroughly enjoyed it.
Hey Betty Martin (inside)	Teach movements, practice the dance
I had the students, still in a circle, to tiptoe as I sang the song. When we reached the 2nd half of the song, I had the students sway their arms from side to side to the song; when we reached the end, I changed the last line to "turn around and say goodbye" so that the students had a chance to turn around (and wave goodbye). We covered the first half one more time (with tiptoeing), and then I asked a volunteer student to join me in middle of the circle. I still had the students wave their hands, but during the last line of the 2nd half, I switched positions with the volunteer. At this point, a lot of the students caught on, and they decided to pair up; I had the students practice just the 2nd half one more time, and the students had a good time turning around. At this point, I wanted to take the class outside, and so I had the students line up in front of the door. I reminded the students that the song talked about tiptoeing, so as I sang the song, I had the students follow me out to the circle in the play area outside.
Hey Betty Martin (outside)	Have students try to dance around the circle
With the students outside, I then had the students try doing the Betty Martin dance; I had this time four students in the middle tiptoe with me, while the rest of the students were tiptoeing around the outside. The directions for the inside students didn't really matter to me, but at the end of the 1st half, I asked those students to find a partner on the outside of the circle. Students without partners still swung their arms, but the hope was to have the inside students swap positions with the outside kids. Typically about half of the students did the swap correctly; some swung a full circle so that they returned to their original positions, and I had to help those students swap. We did this a few more times until there were only fewer than 8 students on the outside who weren't chosen; for the last group, I had those students go in the middle and finish the song. The students seemed to have a good time with this, but it was pretty chaotic, more than I had hoped.
Heel Toe Down The Line	Teach, dance!
This is another dance I've used in past Valentine's Day classes, but I knew I didn't have quite the amount of time that would ensure success. However, I tried to do it anyway, including teaching the students "Ya" and "Nein". I had the students practice jumping and turning a few times on the outside, and quickly tried to put the students into pairs on the outside of the circle. I realized that there was now confusion where some students thought that one of the partners had to be on the inside of the circle, similar to Betty Martin. The first few iterations only had partial success, but after each iteration, more of the students got the idea. The first class, not having a strict end time, was able to find good success, but the second class ran out of time before the students really understood the activity.

And so, that was sort of ok. I really did want to have more success with Heel Toe since it is such a fun activity, but I think I'll try Bow Wow Wow the next time, which is similar.

Teaching Notes, K, 20150204

I was determined to recapture the first class, as last week was overly chaotic. I also want to start getting the students used to a formula for making a circle, and so I tried to keep the kids all in a circle for the entire time. I’ve found that if I sit in on the outside with the students, some students see me really well, while some do not, and so during the class I found myself moving into the middle of the circle just for visibility. It also meant that I was spinning around a lot so that I could see everyone (and everyone could see me), and I was also on my knees. I guess I’ll have to buy another pair of jeans if I keep this up, all in the name of music.

Hello World	Formally teach-echo chorus, immerse stanza
I immediately asked the students to be my echo, and I started singing the song. For the first class, I sang it in the same key as Red Grammer, but the class was trying to match pitch instead of going an octave higher. As such, I moved up my voice an octave, discovered that I wasn’t well warmed up, and the class noticed a bit. For the second class, I sang in the key of A (G probably would have worked too), with myself higher but not too high so that the kids could follow. I went through the song only once through - echo chorus, solo stanza, echo chorus. A few students said they liked the song, and so I guess we’ll have to do it again next week. :)
Keep The Kettle Boiling	Teach and Play the Game
I actually tried this song for a very short amount of time with one of the classes, and one of the students in the first class had been asking for this, so I figured it was time to cover this properly. I talked about how it was cold outside, and when it was cold, it was a great time to have soup. I asked the students about what they'd put in the soup, and we talked about the various ingredients (including chocolate!) that they would add. I then asked them how soup was prepared, and eventually we converged on the fact that one needed a pot, there needed to be water, and there needed to be a heat source. With that, I had the students pretend to turn up the heat under the pot full of water and vegetables, and I instructed the students to stir the pot. This made for a very easy segue into saying the chant, and I had the students echo me. I then told the students that their pot was a very special pot - it could hold only one person inside, and so that I could jump in, I had the students chant "in jumps Mr. Chen!". (It was also a great time to re-ask the students what my name was, as many didn't remember what my name was, even in February.) I asked the students what had to happen in order to put someone else in the pot, and they responded correctly that I had to get out. That allowed me to teach the remainder of the chant, and I had the students beckon a student to jump into the pot. This worked really well - the students echoed every step of the way for another two students' worth of chanting, and then I had the students chant with me instead of echoing. There were about 25 students per class, and so I had plenty of opportunity to change things - I had the students pretend the pot was really big (e.g. low sounds) or really small (high sounds). I then had the students pretend the boiling was really fast (staccato) or really slow (legato). Finally, when we had about 4 students left, I had the students chant faster and faster until we finished back to me. This worked out really well; the students had a good time, and they learned the activity well enough to repeat it without me.
If You've Got One (Justin Roberts)	Teach movements
I use this every year at some point, and this seemed like a good time to use it. As in past years, I took the time to teach 1-2-3-4-5 in ASL, and with that, I simply walked the students through the movements of the song. After going through the song one time, I sang the song and gave the students enough time to do each movement. There is a recording that goes with this, and my intention is to use that recording for next week.
I Am A Pizza	Teach by echo
This song is typically one that many students already knew coming in, and indeed, many did once I started singing. Once I acknowledged the handful who recognized the song, I had the students echo. We completed the first stanza, and then I asked the students to try to repeat the last line ("I am a pizza ready to go") together, which is how the recording works. We then repeated the first stanza similar to the recording - echoing all except that last line. Knowing that I didn't have a lot of time, I simply moved onto the rest of the song. for the last line, I did pause and prompt the students with what they should sing; many did not catch on, but that was ok for me. We eventually finished the song, and at the end, some students in the second class, to my surprise, gave me a round of applause.
Hey Betty Martin	Teach song
I only had time to do this with the first class - with the students already in the circle, I started singing the song. When it came to "tip toe tip toe", I started tiptoeing around the circle, which the students followed. When it came to the second half of the song, I had the students follow me, swinging away - we were still echoing - and when it was time to say goodbye, I simply turned around. We did the two halves of the song one more time until we ran out of time. Clearly, I intend on using Hey Betty Martin next week, as I think it would be a great dance for Valentine's Day. The first class students seemed to have fun with the little bit of the song, which bodes well.

Next week is indeed Valentine's Day, and I already have a few activities that should be fun. If it is a dry day, I may try to take them outside, since it is helpful to have the extra room.

Teaching Notes, K, 20150128

I felt it was time to try instruments again, as past songs like Here We Go A-Riding extend naturally towards rhythm instruments. If I could get the kids to play together, particularly the first class (which had troubles in the past), I’ll claim victory. Here’s what happened.

It’s a Very Good Day	Reteach, add snow
I started simply by singing this song, and the kids followed pretty well up to the point when one asks “why” - at that point, fewer than 5 kids in each class chimed in. I reviewed the break in the song and the arm motion, and we then re-sang the entire song once more. I then told the students that kids on the other side of the country were getting heavily snowed in; I then asked the students what their East coast counterparts would sing, and some students chimed in correctly. We then sang the snowy version of the song to acknowledge the other children who were enjoying the white stuff.
Head Shoulders, Baby	Review, add more funny motions
Last time, we only covered this song for a bit, and so I wanted to give the song its full due. I basically repeated last week’s version of doing motions, followed by motions with words, followed by singing and motions. After going through “Head, Shoulders” and “Knees, Ankles”, I then asked the students to “Find a partner, baby” - and most did quickly. With just about everyone paired up, we did the same two versions of the song, followed by “pick the apple”, and then “jump and turn”. For the second class, I also had them “throw the ball”, which they had fun with.
Here We Go A-Riding (first class)	Pass out instruments, Play song with instruments
I wanted to describe this individually for each class, since the experiences were dramatically different. For the first class, I first reviewed the song - we said “ding”, “all aboard”, and progressed through the other parts of the song. At this point, I had the students move into a circle, and I had them practice marching and stopping (“march and march and march and stop!”). With the students still in the circle, I had the intention of putting the instruments in the center, and I started putting a few there to make a smaller inner circle. However, I found myself reminding the creeping children to move back, as they all either wanted a closer look, or they were trying to grab the instruments. (In retrospect, I should have stopped right there and put the instruments back.) It took far longer for me to put the instruments in a circle, and I then had the students march a bit again. I then had the students point to the closest instrument, but I received a flurry of complaints from the students who said they wanted a different instrument. One student actually repositioned himself in the other side of the circle just to get himself closer to a more desirable instrument. Ignoring those complaints, I instructed the students to pick up the instrument that they were pointing to. Some said that they didn’t want that, and I told them that they didn’t have to play an instrument. As you can imagine, the class basically degraded from there into a cacophonous mess. I wasn’t able to have the students play in any sort of structured order at this point, and all I could do is re-collect the instruments after a minute.
Here We Go A-Riding (second class)	Pass out instruments, Play song with instruments
I had to try something differently with the second class, and so after reviewing the song with them, I then picked out a single student with a bell. I cut the “dings” down to 4 dings, and I had the student play along with me (and the rest of the class, with their voices) 4 times. I then handed out a few more bells to a few more students, huddled them together as my bell section, and we all practiced again, 4 times. I proceeded to have the entire class sing “All Aboard” together, but when it was time to do the “choo choo”, I broke out a pair of sand blocks; as the students made the choo choo sound, I sanded the blocks in beat. Just like I had done with the bells, I had a few students come up and be the sand block section. I repeated this with rhythm sticks and tone blocks for the “clickety clack”; and finally, for the “wooohooo” at the end, I formed a tambourine section with the remaining students. Each time I added a new section, we restarted the song as a group. This did mean that the students in the last sections didn’t get to play their instruments as much, but at least the class played together. We did the song twice before I collected the instruments - and this time, I was able to ask in sol-mi “who has ‘bells’” in order to get the students to return their equipment in a semi-orderly fashion.
John The Rabbit	Review, re-sing
For the first class, I used this as a way to regroup the students, and at least cover some material in an orderly fashion. It was plain old review - the kids enjoyed it, and I think the parent volunteer, after witnessing the chaos, also was relieved to see that the kids were going to be ok. In order to keep the classes parallel, I decided to do John the Rabbit in the second class a well, which also worked fine as a review. I received some interesting questions after covering the 2nd and 3rd stanzas about the animals in the song.

For the second class, I was able to cover a tiny bit of “Hey Betty Martin”, substituting “little children” for “Betty Martin”. However I didn’t get very far before the bell rang, and so I’ll be sure to use it for next time.

Part of me is really interested in trying instruments again very soon, although that would likely involve diverging the two classes, which I would rather not do. However, I am determined to try to get the students to play instruments together, in an orderly fashion. It can be done - I just have to find the right solution for them.