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.