Teaching Notes, 20150225

Yet another illness knocked out last week's class, and so it's been two weeks since my last entry. I had a lot to cover for this week, including possibly going back outside (although I chose at the last minute not to do this). However, I did want to try doing some rhythm theory, even if I didn't market it as such to the students.

It's A Very Good Day	Review and warm up
This really is becoming an easy warmup for the kids. Almost exactly as I had done a few weeks ago, I had the students sing once through, then once remarking that it was a windy day, and finally once more acknowledging that kids on the east coast are finding that they are enjoying a snowy day. I did want to get the kids thinking about the other side of the country while we covered the next item...
This Land Is Your Land	Teach motions and song to the first stanza
This Land is a song that happens to be easily signable with ASL signs, and so I definitely wanted the students to try signing along. However, before I even started covering that song, I had the students mirror all of my motions. I had them follow me for about a minute, varying what I was doing and trying to trick them (e.g. almost clapping). I then had them mirror the signs for the stanza without telling them about the signs' significance. Then, I started to sing the song with the signs going on; some students sang along, but most continued to mirror me. We repeated this one more time, and then I reviewed with the students where to move in order to get into a circle. Just like I had done a few weeks ago, I asked the students to try to form a circle in the duration of a single song - they were able to do it, with only 2 students per class unable to find a good place on the perimeter.
2, 4, 6, 8	Teach chant, then explore rhythm
I first wrote the numbers 1-8 on the board, had the students count off, and then I erased the even numbers. I ask the students explore the pattern of the even numbers, and then I had them echo the entire chant. One variation that I like to do here is that for the third line I typically say "If I'm late, don't you wait" instead of "If I'm late, don't wait" so that the two halves of that line have the same rhythm. With the chant in the kids' minds (and it's not a difficult chant), I then had them clap to every quarter note, and tap their knees on every eighth note. Then, I went back to the board, picked up a dry-erase marker, and marked down four vertical lines representing the claps. I did the same with rest of the song, using another color for the knee taps. Next, with the students in a circle, I had the students try passing a ball such that the ball would change owners once every two beats of the the chant. We tried this a few times, and then i had the student who ended up with the ball hide the ball behind his back. I then asked in sol-mi "who has the tennis ball", and I had the holder respond, also in sol-mi, "I have the tennis ball". Finally, I had one of the students come to the middle, and we made a game out of this, with the center student needing to guess (with eyes closed) who had the tennis ball after the sol-mi exchange. The kids seemed to enjoy the game and also get the hang of it - it was pretty enjoyable to watch them play.
Bow Wow Wow	Teach chant/motion, play game
Here's where things went south for a bit. The students, fresh of the game, no longer were really following me very well when I started teaching this - instead they were chattering away. At this point, I knew that this particular song was going to be a challenge in a small space, and I really didn't have enough time to lead the kids outside, so I punted on this; for the second class, I skipped this entirely.
Old King Glory	Teach song, immerse in dance
In order to recapture the students' attention, I simply had the students echo me - that worked pretty well, although I had to sing a bit louder than I wanted to. Next, I then got the students to start marching towards their right (counter-clockwise). At this point, I unfortunately started losing the focus of the second class, and I ended up punting this as well as it seemed like they really weren't in the mood for marching. The first class however was marching along, and with the kids marching in one direction, I snuck outside the circle, started marching in the opposite direction, and started the song. Once you get the activity going, the kids follow really well; we ended with two students in the middle, and I had the class on the outside bow to them.
My Bonnie	Review song and activity
And about that second class... I simply repeated the My Bonnie activity from two weeks ago - clapping in 3s and 6s, followed by the song. While we sang the song, some students remembered about going up and down with the song, and so we followed up with moving to "Bonnie". I ran out of time before I could revisit moving with all of the "b" words, but that didn't matter - I managed to recapture the focus of the class, even for just a few minutes at the end.

Despite losing one activity per class, the students seemed to enjoy a good mixture of new and old material. I did actually have the Cookie Jar ready to go, which I may introduce next week.