- Intro: I'm In The Mood for Singing. The students remembered the first two and the last lines, but they still sang a regular response during that fateful 3rd line. We practiced the third line a few times before singing through it one more time.
- Mail Myself To You. It is always easy to get students to talk about presents after the holiday break, and then I asked the students if they got anything for their parents. Some students said that they did, while others realized that they had not, but I reminded them that the best "present" that they gave to their parents was themselves. Then, I asked the students what they'd do if they wanted to send themselves as a present. I've used this schtick to introduce this song countless times, and it always works like a charm. We covered only the first two stanzas this week, but that was plenty.
- Chubby Little Snowman. After talking about snow and travel, I then had the students review this song one time through. Then, I brought out a set of tone bells - one whole octave (in C), and I took 8 students at one edge of the circle and gave each a bell in order. I had the students play their bell in order, and then we talked in class about how it was a "scale" going up (or down, which we then did). Next, I had the students sing the song, but using each bell as a reference for each line. I thought it was going to be difficult to try to do the scale down, but it actually worked ok. The only tricky part is that I found myself with my back to most of the students when addressing the bell players.
- Here We Go A-Riding. I collected the bells while saying "ding" for each one - coincidentally there were 8 bells to collect, matching the 8 "dings". None of the students remembered the significance of the dings, and so then I sort of treated this song as new - which was fine at first, but then the students eventually caught on; I reprised the song one more time and that went very quickly.
It was time to introduce more instruments, and I brought out a triangle for the class to see. After demonstrating it and noting the importance of holding it with a dangling handle (i.e. not the metal triangle itself), I then gave it to one student (not a former bell player from before), to demonstrate to the group; I had the students chant "ding", while the student played. Next up was a sand block pair, which was to be played during the "choo choo" - I demonstrated it first, and then gave it to another student (on the opposite side of the room). Finally, I brought out a pair of rhythm sticks for the "clickety-clack", and after demonstrating its purpose in the context of this song, I gave it to another student. With the three leaders in place, I then passed out two more triangles, five more sand block pairs, and then more rhythm sticks so that everyone who didn't play a bell got an instrument. We then performed the song twice with the instruments; I still had to cue each section, but the students seemed to oblige. Everyone got to play their instrument during the ending "whoohooo", and I had those without instruments simply pat their hands on the carpet. - Get On Board Little Children. I've used this song a few times around MLK Day for kindergarteners, and since we just did a train exercise, this was a great song for them. It's short, and has a few arm movements, and the students were able to follow me pretty quickly. We went through this a few times, but as I was already out of time, I then had the students sing this song as they returned to their seats.
Instruments take up a lot of time! However, I think it was probably the most satisfying instrument day for the class this school year. I had a lot of students asking if they could play bells during Chubby Little Snowman, but after the others got to play something during Here We Go A-Riding, the complaints stopped.
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