Teaching Notes, 20150311

Usually during the year I have the kids listen to different kinds of music. However, this year I strangely hadn't done much of that and so I decided (last minute) to have an opener where the students listened and analyzed a piece of music. It also had been a while since we last danced, so I wanted to have the kids try dancing for a bit. Everything in the middle I had hoped to be review or extension in one form or another.

The Flight of the Bumblebee (Yo Yo Ma + Bobby McFerrin)	Listen, describe music, identify "instruments"
I asked the students to listen to the song as they were gathering around the carpet, and mid-way through the song I asked them if they could think of a creature that the original composer had in mind. It wasn't long before many students converged on a flying insect of some sort, and then someone said a "bee". After the song ended, I then asked the students about the instruments that they heard. Most knew that there was some sort of stringed instrument, and we talked about the cello for a bit. But, then, I asked the students to find another special "instrument", and to listen carefully for it. That other instrument of course is Bobby McFerrin's voice, and it was easier for the students to hear him near the middle of the song. The students were amused by the prospect of a voice moving that quickly.
This Land Is Your Land	Review, add 3rd stanza
This was pretty simple - I had the students stand up, and I simply started singing the song. Most of the students followed, and I had them follow my motions. I slowed the song down a bit for the 2nd stanza, but the kids were able to follow it for the most part. After that, I then instructed the students to go into mirror mode (no sounds!), and I then had them follow my movements for the 3rd stanza. The 3rd stanza for us is actually later in from the original song; I chose "When the sun was shining..." - and after practicing the motions, I then had the students move-echo each part of this third stanza. We did the echoing once more (I took a bit of time explaining each motion), and then we did this all together. I then had the students sing through the 1st stanza one more time, and we moved on. This turned out to be pretty easy; the kids followed well - I think they're getting used to the echo-motion - and they also are singing the 1st stanza very readily.
Animal Claps	Have students explore simple rhythms
I had signs for Bear, Bunny (or Rabbit), Butterfly and Alligator printed out. I took a picture of a bear, attached it to the board, and said "bear" while clapping. For the first class I introduced the other animals one at a time, but in retrospect, what I did for the second class was better, where I started with four bears, and then changed them one at a time. With four animals on the board, I had the students repeat the rhythm, and I tried pretty hard to keep the beats steady. Next, I asked students to come up and change one of the animals. I always kept the first animal at "bear", and so we ended up changing around the 2nd, 3rd and 4th animal. The students seemed to get the hang of this pretty well! I then chanted "2-4-6-8", and we worked through the chant, line by line, creating the animal list for each line. In retrospect, I think I probably should have chosen animals with different starting letters. Also, once the alligator shows up, I had to slow the beat down; the children cannot clap all that quickly compared to older children, and I still wanted to keep everyone in sync. I'll definitely be re-using the animal technique to come up with rhythms of songs that the children know.
Longer The Faster	Review and Dance
At this point, the 1st class became more and more rowdy with the animals that they really didn't have the focus to pull this off; we were just about out of time anyway. The second class, however, was able to get through this. Initially I tried to make two lines, but the students eventually migrated back to a circle - and a circle works just fine for this song. We had actually covered this activity only for the 1st class originally, so it was good that I was able to do this for the second class. I had the students practice this a bit, and then we were off "dancing" to the tune. The bell rang around three quarters' of the way through the song and at that point I stopped the music. I did ask the students if they noticed what happened to the tempo of the song, and they knew. Kudos to them for sticking around a little longer to discover that.

I have noticed that my lesson plans are condensing a bit - fewer activities during the 30 minutes. The kids are getting more comfortable with me, and while attention span is always going to be a challenge, I do think that they can follow longer on the same activity than they could before. Next week I'll cover more songs related to the spring show.