Teaching Notes, 20160427

It was actually a cold, cloudy day, so I decided to keep the students inside.  Here's what happened!

1. Intro: Teaching Peace.  Knowing that few students knew this the first time, I spent time having the students echo each line of the chorus.  We did this twice, but since it was supposed to be a warmup song, I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it.
2. Body Solfege.  I deliberately wanted the students to practice this, and so we started with the first three notes, followed by myself randomly choosing one of the three.  I continued to expand this to include the first five notes, and then the whole scale.  I pointed out that the "scale" starts and ends with "Do" (although I don't think I used the term "scale").  I then tried to have them practice signing and singing Sol-Mi.  Few students recognized "Bee Bee Bumblebee" when I sang the solfege version, but eventually I got them to do Bee Bee while doing the body solfege.
3. Right Hand Boogie.  This was simply pure fun.  We tried the "other" hand boogie, followed by the right leg boogie.
4. Milky Way.  Time to review, and finally complete the song, which I hadn't done yet.  I did include "my house" and "that's me" into the song, which kept the last two (and new) lines fresh.  I think the students really know the chorus of the song like the back of their hand.
5. Popcorn Tree: I told the students that even though it was cold, trees were blooming.  I didn't expect the students to really learn the song after I sang it through for them, but I did tell them to listen and try to count the number of times "pop" showed up in the song (either as a solitary word or part of "popcorn").  The students were a little all over the map after the first singing, and I tried to help them with hand signs every time I said "pop" in any form.  It took three times through the song before a majority of children converged on the right answer (7).
6. Pony Macaroni.  The kids wanted to revisit one of the past dances, and so while I was connecting the iPod, I taught the students this song, having them simply gallop around in a circle until I said "stop" - it was more an exercise to have the students try to listen to commands, and it was a nice way to continue to have the kids do something new until the iPod was ready.
7. Seven Jumps.  The class really wanted to do this, and so I went ahead and let them try.  Now, this time we were inside, and it turns out that the students routinely tried to creep into the middle every time, which made the "dance" very crowded and cluttered.  After the dance was over, I chatted briefly with the students about how the dance went very differently compared to the previous attempts.  Although the kids had fun, I'll have to try a different dance next time.
8. Exit: Goodbye My Friends.  The children returned to their seats as we sang.

I didn't actually get around to using instruments again, and I know that the students are overdue.  With the dances that they seem to be consistently interested in, and with the concentration of time on the spring sing songs, I realize I may not have a lot of time for the instruments for a while.   I hope to be able to sneak them in however before May ends.