Teaching Notes, 20160224

I had been out of town during the week of the 10th, and during the following week (after the holiday), I fell ill, so I had not taught class for three weeks until now.  That was an unexpectedly long layoff, and so I wanted to try to get the students playing with instruments - specifically, rhythm sticks - again.  However, I found myself scrapping a lot of my original plan and improvising a bit, which didn't quite go quite as well, especially when my recovering voice decided to give out very early into the lesson.

1. Intro: Everybody Gather 'Round.  I started the song with my ukulele, and the kids responded quickly.  However, I noticed quickly that I couldn't maintain high notes very well, and rather than move into the first bridge and second stanza, I kept this one short.
2. Austrian Yodeler.  The last time I tried this, the students tried to shoot themselves across the carpet when making the "avalanche" sound.  I tried this again, and again the students did the same thing.  I was hoping to get through a lot of different animals - I introduced the grizzly bear again - but the activity became way too disruptive - and so I cut this one short as well.
3. Rhythm Animals.  I used the bear reference to talk more about the rhythm bears and bunnies from past classes.  I could not locate the printouts of bears and bunnies, so I had to improvise, simply writing lines on the board to represent the number of syllables for the animal names.  I then connected the two lines for "bunny" noting that they were really part of the same animal.  We tried a few combinations of bears and bunny lines before breaking out the sticks.
4. Rhythm sticks.  The goal here was to have the class stick to various preprinted rhythms.  However, it was challenging to keep the students focused; I suppose the long layoff from having instruments made the sticks remarkably distracting.  I was able to get through a few slides, and I introduced the concept of the (quarter) rest, but I don't think I was able to get the class to focus evenly through this exercise.  Normally I have the students stick to a song, but because of the chaos, I collected the sticks early.
5. Milky Way.  Breaking out the ukulele again, I tried singing this, but again found that my voice wasn't doing me any favors.  I was able to get through a few lines, up to the sea and the land, but it seemed like only half of the class could follow me.  I simply didn't have enough of a voice to keep their attention.  I think in the future also the ukulele seems to also not necessarily be helping much especially since I do want the students to try to use ASL signs in the song, so I'll likely revisit this without the instrument.
6. This Land Is Your Land.  I started signing without words, hoping that the students would follow, and they did - far more effectively than the other exercises.  Then, I started singing - the voice still wasn't cooperating, but the students at least knew most of the words, so they also were able to sing along with me.  We were able to cover the first stanza twice.
7. Exit: Make New Friends.  I had the students sing this once with me, and then we repeated with the students returning to their seats.

My original plan actually didn't involve rhythm sticks at all, but when my voice couldn't keep up with the lesson, I tried changing things around.  Unfortunately, I think a solid voice from the teacher is critical to the lesson, and the lack of a healthy voicebox really put me at a significant disadvantage.  The good thing is that I still have the majority of my originally planned lesson that I can use for next week.