Teaching Notes, 20150923

Today's goal was to introduce hand solfege, and reintroduce a few other songs that I used before.  However, after I was done I noticed that I had covered far less than I had expected.

1. Intro: Hello World.  The students simply echoed me line by line.  Pretty simple introduction.
2. Fine Friends Are Here.  I first had the students echo the tune of their response, and then I added hand solfege for sol-mi-re/ mi-re-do (but without mentioning the names of the signs).  After the students got the hang of the tunes, I then added the words.  I then sang my intro, and like last time, the students echoed me rather than responding, and so it took a bit more practice to get them to sing their part.
3. Bee Bee Bumble Bee.  I started tapping a beat, and the students immediately started chanting Bee Bee Bumble Bee.  And so, why fight it?  I started chanting with them.  I then had them sing it in Sol-Mi, and the students followed pretty well.  I then had them sing it while doing the solfege signs, and they also continued to follow.
   We proceeded to play the same game we played before, using a small object as the bee.  I asked the students this time to try passing the bee whenever we changed our hand signs - in retrospect I should have asked them to pass on Sol only since it was a lot of (missed) handoffs - and when someone ended with the "bee", they went into the middle.  However, this time, after the second round, I had the bee student change places with the previous winner.  We did this two more times before moving on.
4. Five Fat Sausages.  I didn't anticipate doing this, but the students also started chanting this, and so I steered them to sing this in Sol-Mi with the same hand signs.  How convenient!
5. Leaves Are Red And Yellow.  I asked the students what season it was, and they correctly noted that it was now fall.  We talked about the colors and sounds that fall brings, and I also told the students how there were lots of apples in the fall.  I then had the students sing this song in echo, one line at a time.  We of course stopped to take a big bite of the make-believe "apple" in the middle of the song.
   Next, I asked who in the class was wearing either red or yellow.  The students have a blue-and-white uniform policy, and so not many were wearing a red or yellow variant (such as red shoelaces or a yellow bracelet).  However, when we sang "red" or "yellow", I had those wearing the colors wave their hands.  Everyone of course got to take a bite out of that apple.
6. The Longer The Faster.  I had the students practice counting to 8, and then I found myself taking a lot longer than I had in the past explaining how to the challenge of finding another space in the circle in 8 counts.  We did play the game, but it took a lot more prompting, especially when I asked students to find another student in the circle who hadn't had a chance to walk through the circle.  When it was all over, we talked about the activity, and how it sped up as the song progressed.
7. Closing: Goodbye My Friends Goodbye.

Both Bee Bee and Leaves came with extra activities that I arguably could have left for next week.