Teaching Notes, 20151125

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and so I was prepared to do another round of Thanksgiving-oriented activities.  But, just like last week, I wanted to start introducing more theory and perhaps a tiny bit of Orff.

1. Intro: Fine Friends Are Here.  I did the same thing as last week - I encouraged the students to sing along, and we sang together the entire first chorus.  I then sang through the stanza, followed by the chorus with the students again.  I then tried walking the students through the stanza by echo, but I've realized that I may need something else - perhaps some hand motions - to go along with the words, as it may be a lot to memorize if I'm to have the students sing this in the spring.
2. Tony Chestnut.  I didn't expect the students to remember much of Tony Chestnut from last week, so I reprised the entire first half, mirrored and all, as if it was new.  However, after singing it through with the motions, I then introduced the words/names and motions for the second half of the song.  The second half to me doesn't have quite the active tune that the first half does, and plus it has "how it ends" - a phrase that left me wondering what to do (without having the students point to their bottoms).  I ended with singing the first half of the song one more time, a bit faster.
3. Rhythms.  I printed out pictures of a bear (four total), and four pictures of a rabbit/bunny, and I had the students speak (and then clap) the combination of bears and bunnies that I had attached via magnet to the whiteboard.  I typically also have a butterfly and an alligator picture, but for now, bears and bunnies were enough.
4. Rhythm Sticks.  With the students keyed onto a few simple rhythms, I then passed out rhythm sticks, and I had them practice sticking to bears and bunny combinations, still limited to four beats at a time.  I then played "Town Town" (by Dean Jones) and I had the students follow me and play with the sticks to the song.
5. Turkey Ran Away.  This was surprisingly the only Thanksgiving song I managed to get to, but after singing one iteration (with the turkey), I then took out two tone bells (a low C and a high C), and I had students try to keep a beat with the tone bells (including giving the rest of the class four beats to establish a tempo).  I was able to have three sets of two kids come up.
6. Exit: Goodbye My Friends Goodbye.  I have been meaning to replace this with a different song.  I'll do that next week.

The tone bells were something I decided at the last minute to use, and typically when I introduce tone bells, I take a more deliberate amount of time to talk about holding them, and how the lengths of the bells affect the pitch.  I didn't quite do that this time, and I'll be sure to cover that properly next week.