Giggle, Giggle, Quack

Stay tuned and find out how Farmer Brown's animals helped Mrs. Bingham's class review long i sounds words and make predictions while singing as well.

Meanwhile, In Mrs. Hogans class, Holst's masterpiece Symphony, the Planets, takes a new twist as as the student's use their knowledge of weather and weather patterns to draw images they invision with the imagery of Jupiter! Stories to accompany will appear in the near future.

Jonny Get your hair cut!

Well first of all, I should let you know that we have a plan. Kind of important right, in order to know how you are going to get somewhere you might want to know your destination? After much thought of how Mrs. Bingham, Mrs. Hogan and I can all get the most out of this experience, we are going to create a lesson plan of music activities, songs, etc. that they can keep in their record for every unit they are working on. I will help teach them while I am there, but during the rest of the week, they either can try out new things, or try using some of the songs and activities we have already worked on. This way it can hopefully just become a part of how they define themselves as teachers.

1st Grade: Jonny Get your hair Cut!

We talked about Jonny, is this something that happened in the past, needs to happen in the future, or is taking place in the present? We talked about some of the key words and then talked about some of the things students had done or are going to do, and reinvented the phrases to fit their personal stories.

2nd grade:

How do you use math to review geometry? the possibilities are endless! We recycled our "A hunting we will go and replaced the animals with 3 dimensional geometric shapes that I pulled out of a bag. It was a huge hit!

Obwisana! -" The rock hit my finger and it hurt!"

In this weeks until the class read a story about how all of the parts of the body have to work together as one unit in order to get things done. We talked about why this is, and how we can do that as a class, and then tied it into out song Obwisana.

It was no small task coordinating out sings skills with keeping the beat and passing sticks in a rhythmic movement. We had many times where they would build up at one student, but it was so nice to see them work together, brainstorm solutions, and try to help those who were struggling. It just so happened that the principal decided to come stop in and watch as well, and loved not only what he saw, but what he heard as well.

WE'LL CATCH A LITTLE FOX AND PUT HIM IN A ...- JANUARY 19TH

FIRST GRADE: Mrs. Bingham's

This morning I got to kick off the Morning with Mrs. Bingham's first grade class. She has told me time and time again that she is not a singer and struggles to add in creativity to her classroom, but I beg to differ. She began class with what she calls the brain dance, where the students excercised to music. It was really cute and the kids were engaged, the only thing missing was her confidence. Before I knew it was time to meet Miss Robb. They all came to join me on the matt. We began our vocal exercises with a song where the kids get to sing their name when it is their turn and then the entire class sings it back. They all just kind of stared at me with big eyes, but by the time I showed them how many goofy different ways we could sing Miss Robb, everyone wanted to try their name. It was not only neat to see their creativity, but their imagination and teamwork as well. There were the occasion students that just straight up said their name, and rather than trying to pressure them into singing it, other students around them would sing an idea, we all sang it together and then just watched as their face lit up.

Lesson Objectives: Rhyming

How? A huntin' we will go! And don't forget about poor old Michael Finnegan

We began with the verses suggested in the song, but the best part was when their creativity popped out. We would sing something like "we'll catch a little lizzard and put him in a ...." and their faces would beam as they thought through and called out different words, and someone would yell, BLIZZARD! and we'd finish the song.

The best part about today was that when I got home later and routinely checked my email I found this:

"Thanks again for today. I thought what you did was really fun. I am excited to learn new things!"

-Cynthia

With this project, I care so much about these kids embracing the concepts and activities, but just as much I want so badly for the teacher's to love it too so that it can continue to be a part of their class room and learning environment, and so this email simply made my day.

2nd Grade: The Highlights

Head and Shoulders Baby: One, Two, Three

What better way to learn about Africa and the body then with a traditional folk song?

We had lots of fun doing it through disguised repetition as we varied the speed from rabbit to cheetah, or they style from cool kid to granny.

A hunting we will go - Stuffed animal style

It just so happend to be a pajama party for the students today and many of them had their favorite stuffed animals so we threw them in for a fun new twist to the song. Some even resulted in us inventing new words like a Biraffe for the Giraffe.

I can't wait until next week!

First Day in Midway! Tuesday January 9th

I was just reminded why it is that I love music so much! For the first day in Ms. Hogan's 2nd grade class we decided to work with small groups and she forewarned me of how her kids are crazy about music and dancing. A few days before she was able to let me know what some of the concepts were that they were covering in class, and left me with the challenge to then find ways of covering those same topics in a fun, new, musical way!

The Challenge Topics: Cause and Effect, Making Inferences based off of Pictures, and

The Plan: Name Game: Ickity Bickity bumblebee bee will you sing your name for me ? they sing creatively sing their name to the class and we all repeat it back.

Learner Outcome - vocal exploration, creativity, listening skills

Book: The farmer in the Dell by Alexandra Wallner.

Goals:Sing the melody together, use context to guess the meaning of new words, make predictions about what will happen next, and figure out the cause and effect. (As we read this book you are going to notice a pattern and when you find it I wan't you to join in.)

Listening and Movement: Listen to Harl MacDonald - Children's Symphony - III Allegro Scherzando Classicsonline.com

When you hear something you recognize I want you to tap the beat on your shoulders, knees etc.

What summer memories do you think of?

The Outcome: We had so much fun! She had split her class up into small groups based off of their reading level. It was so interesting to see how the approach we took to each song and activity adjust to the needs of each group. Some of them were a little skeptical at first about singing for their classmates, but that soon faded. Those who were too shy drew for us the contour of the line for the way they wanted it done and we all sang it together. It was fun to see too how different individuals were accommodated through the different mediums. Some of them really needed to be up and moving, acting out their thoughts, some not only sang their name, but created a whole line about them self, and the last group went wild with the concept of cause and effect. I am so excited to get to keep learning from these children!