Teaching Notes, 20160302

So what happens when you forget your laptop, your iPod, and your ukulele?  You end up playing games!  That's exactly what happened today.

1. Intro: Everybody Oughta Know.  The students are still echoing the 3rd line, and so I had to have them follow me through that third line a few times again.  We sang this three times, with the third line referencing the Ocean
2. My Bonnie.  Before starting, I had the students mirror me with a tap-clap-clap pattern, and after getting the students to follow me, I started singing while continuing the rhythm.  Students typically turn "Bonnie" into "Body", and so after singing through once, I had the students practice saying "Bonnie" with an "N".  We then talked about how Bonnie was on a boat in the water, so rather than have the students wear out their hands clapping and tapping, I had them mimic rowing a boat - after each line, we switched rowing from one side to the other.
3. Who Stole The Cookie From the Cookie Jar?  I morphed the three-beat pattern to a four-beat pattern (tap, clap, shoulder, shoulder), and the students followed pretty easily.  When I asked the students "who stole the cookie form the cookie jar," a bunch of the students said that they knew this, but I discovered quickly that they didn't know the responses.  Writing the responses in two different colors really helps here, and I was quickly off having students recite the poem while choosing the next student.  We probably got through about 2/3rds of the class before exhausting the supply of willing students, and we ended with choosing the teacher.  (It's always good to choose the teacher to end this.)
4. Tony Chestnut.  This might still be a spring sing song, and so we hadn't visited this in a while - it was time to try it again.  We only did the first half (twice), but it was still a lot of fun.
5. This Land Is Your Land.  With the students following me, I had them follow my signs, and during that time a lot of the students thought I was going to break into The Milky Way.  But instead, I re-taught the students This Land.  I didn't really take the same amount of time I normally do to explain the signs, and so I have to remember to do that in the future.  I did get through the second stanza, although that mostly involved the kids following my signs.
6. Deep And Wide.  I introduced this song many weeks ago, but the students mostly did not remember this.  Fortunately, it's a very simple song to re-teach, and the students were able to sing and sign to the song quickly.  I then proceeded to remove first "wide" and then "river" before I ran out of time.
7. Exit: Make New Friends.  The kids expected Goodbye My Friends Goodbye, but I had them sing Make New Friends one more time.

It's neat to see the students start to anticipate songs and form their own favorite songs or activities.  The next week appears to be another rainy one, and so I anticipate that we'll end up doing more indoor activities and games.