Allison and Charlie

ALLISON AND CHARLIE

 No, these aren't students names of mine, but they are names in music activities we did in 2nd grade and Kindergarten today.

"Allison the Camel" holds a near and dear place in my heart.  A certain educator friend informed me that when her daughter was in my music class and we sang this song and did activities with it, it became ingrained in her head.  And therefore, became a permanent fixture wherever they went.  

She sang it in the car, she sang it from afar.  She sang it in a tree, she sang to you and me. 

You get the point.

Allison a.k.a Alice the Camel is a very easy countdown song.  Today in 2nd grade we differentiated an easy song to be more challenging for this age.

In the book Listen, Sing, Rattle, Ding there are many popular, easy kid songs that help add those misc. instruments into the song.  I have a great deal of instruments in my room, but don't want to just "add" them in.  I want them to have a purpose. 

Allison's Camel begins with the song, teaching it to the few who might not have heard it before.  Next adds a rhythmic pattern using body percussion.  4 moves of pat legs, clap, snap and tap head are used with specific patterns.  We created a "Coda" to play on the last verse since the words change to "'cause Allison is a horse".  Coda, in Italian, means end and we discuss what this means in class.  I was so thrilled when I had several students remember it from last year when posed as a question.

Finally we transfer body percussion to instruments.  4 moves becomes 4 instruments.  They have kinesthetically played the rhythm on their body, now they transfer one of the rhythms onto their instrument.  Grouped together, they quickly figure out how to play the pattern or watch around to pick it up.

 

Drums play on "Boom, Boom, Boom".  Appropriate, right?

Rhythm sticks play on "Allison's Camel has".

Tambourines play on the "5 humps".  We had clapped this previously so tambourine is a natural transfer.

Triangles are on "So go, Allison, go". 

Sorry the video is so short.   They struggled holding it together on their own if I wasn't doing the body percussion.  :)

Today was the first day of Kindergarten specials!  They've been in school for 1 week as of this point.  They rotate between Music, Library and P.E. for 90 minutes.  Us 3 teachers are usually exhausted, can you imagine these poor little 5-year-olds?!?

They did really good today, especially since we had to go over expectations for the first few minutes.  Many new faces that enter my room and see "toys" and "when do we get to play with them"?

After expectations were done, we started off with a great Kindergarten game, "Charlie Over the Ocean".  In essence it is a glorified game of duck-duck-goose.  The difference is that "Charlie" walks around the outside of the circle and only touches one head at the end of the song on the words "can't catch me".  Then they chase around the circle racing back to their spot.

I learned this song at a class, by the teacher.  She taught us the 3rd phrase being "Charlie in the bathtub".  Being a folk song, who knows what the original words were. 

The video is a great demonstration that not all kids know those good ol' games we think they do, or maybe I didn't take the time and explain it good enough that he was supposed to race to the other person's spot.  This is why it's a great Kindergarten game.  They don't care.  They laughed and giggled, and cheered each other on.  It was a great start to Kindergarten specials and I can't wait to see what's ahead.

Let us Chase the Squirrel

This week has been full of review, expectations and meeting new friends. We had around 40 new-to-our-district students this year. That's a huge number for us. 

My beginning of the year classes usually involves seating charts, classroom expectations. I've been teaching at West Marshall long enough now that it usually goes very quick. That allowed us for some time to play. 

3rd, 4th, and 5th grades had time at the end of class to play a game we've played before. "Let us chase the squirrel" is a very easy song to learn and the game is very simple. We reviewed the song and got to the game. 2 students are the tree and 1 student is the squirrel. At the end of the song, the tree raises its branches and the squirrel has to go find a new home as fast as they can. There are always extra squirrels also trying to find a tree (similar to musical chairs). 

When all squirrels have a tree we start singing again and go. The game is very fast-paced with little to no downtime. About 10 minutes of this game is enough time to get everyone a chance to be a squirrel. 

Below are 5th graders playing on the first day of music. Great first week. 

And we're off and running..............

Rachel 5th, Brittany 6th, Seth 3rd and Laura (a.k.a. Mrs. V) 35th grade or something

Welcome school year 2015/2016.  I can't believe I am beginning my 15th year of teaching.  Where have the years gone.............

My first teaching job was right out of college when I thought I knew everything.  I was 23 and teaching high school band.  I was basically their same age.  I was terrible at marching band and that was the highlight of the program.  It was not the greatest start to my teaching career.  I loved the students and staff that I worked with, just maybe not the greatest match.  But, ending student teaching in December, this was one of no other jobs available mid-year.  

Next I moved on to a K-6 1/2 time music position.  When I was in college I swore I would never teach elementary music.  Now that I've been teaching this age for 13 years I'll admit that I was wrong just this once.  1/2 time teaching was not the job I thought I was destined to have, but then having 3 kids in 4 years it was ideal!!!!

Now I'm beginning my 7th year of teaching at West Marshall Elementary in little State Center, IA.  We've had a lot of changes in this time.  My first 2 years I was sharing the space with Title Math and I was also 80% time teacher and 20% time aide.  Learning 450 names that first year was one of the hardest parts.  Whew, I'm glad I only have to learn Kdg students now.

As a teacher with 14 years of experience, I sometimes think I know everything I need to know.  Then I do a serious hand-to-the-forehead thump and realize I'm not even close.  Our students are learning in new and unique forms every year.  We as educators have to constantly keep up with them.  I am always finding new ways to teach the same musical concepts which makes it more fun for me as well.  

If you were to walk into my music classroom on any given day this year you might see/hear some or all of the following:

Singing (obviously)

Dancing (as well as other big loco-motor moves)

Playing music games

Instruments

Discussing

Music Centers

Folk dancing

Parachutes

Snow-ball throwing (not until winter months of course)

Riding Noodle Horses

Hula Hoops

Mimio activities (Interactive whiteboard)

I'll stop there because I need to get my kids ready for bed.  My point is, in my class I have learned that kids don't learn the same so I can't teach one way and expect them to all learn the same concept. Sometimes my classroom looks/sounds very chaotic, and it is, but those are some of the most fun days in my class. The creativity is contagious.  I'm very grateful that I have the freedom to teach music in the capacity I do.  I help out in some of the core teachers' classroom and...........  Let's just say I'm in the position where I belong.  I could not do what they do every day.  I like that I only have to count to 4 and I'm going to try and keep it that way (lol, that's music teacher humor).

Here's to another great year for West Marshall. I am so honored and proud that I work in this field and for this district.  My goal this year is to use this blog to keep parents, families, friends and colleagues up-to-date on what is going on in the music world at West Marshall Elementary.  

Happy School Year!

Summer Classroom Norm

Summertime for majority of schools across the country means repairs, replacements, and moving rooms.  Always true in our school.  Having just finished my 6th year at West Marshall, at least 3, possibly 4 summers my room gets to house the supplies of those rooms that are being repaired.

Waaaaayyyyyy back in January, Sunday, January 11 to be exact I received a phone call from my principle asking if we had a 2-wheeled cart we could bring down to the school.  When I asked her what she needed it for, she said the boiler lost all of its pressure and emptied itself into one of the classrooms.  They were evacuating all the supplies out of her classroom as we were talking.  I told her yes and we were on our way to help.  This Kindergarten teacher (you know who you are Mrs. Diser) has a lot of stuff.  With inches of water flooding her carpeted floor we were getting things out of her room as fast as we could haul it.  The fix that made the most sense was to take her to my classroom and I would use the band room as both band and music classroom.  The kids thought it was a great adventure and honestly I think Mrs. Diser liked the space in my room.  I made sure to moan and groan to make sure I got my space back.  After a week we all got moved back to where we belong.  

sidebar:  The reason I remember this so well, is obviously it was very out of the ordinary, but my student teacher had just started the week before on January 5.  The first week of her student teaching every day we either had a late start, early out or a snow day.  Then her second week we're adjusting to different room teaching.  She definitely got the best experience.

 So now that summer has arrived, that room that was flooded has warped floors.  It's time to repair.  Obviously that means empty everything out of her room once again and taking it to the music room (once again).  We had a little surprise on one of our in-service days.  We had had a meeting at the high school that morning.  When we came back to the elementary we found they had already started ripping out her floors and then insisted that the built-in cabinets be emptied out also as they were going to repair the floors under them.  That made for a mass panic of shoving things on carts and running them down the hallway to my room and just dumping stuff anywhere there was a space available.  Mrs. Diser, good luck when it comes to figuring out where all this stuff goes when you're allowed back in your room. 

I will say that she does have a lot of amazing "stuff" that now I know what she has hidden in those cabinets.  Tons and tons of manipulatives.  Hmmmmm.  How can I use them in a music center?

There are also some puppets that might not make it back to her room either.  Seriously, there's a whole family of them.  Do you realize how many different vocal explorations I could do with all of those different characters? 

Try Something New!

So the last few days of school we've had a different round of "specials" than normal.  Our students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades were granted a reward day.  They were allowed to choose up to 3 rewards based on their test scores.  If they met or exceeded the goal, they chose from several possible rewards such as:  Art, PE, technology, computers, free-reading, music, movie time.  The students could potentially choose PE for 3 half hours.  Some did, and they looked exhausted by the end.  I only had students choose music for 1 session (no my feelings weren't hurt), so I thought I would try something different.

I have many things in my room that I don't always know how to use.  I have an F-bar bass xylophone that I never know how to use.  I have over 50 Boomwhackers that often leave me with a headache.  I also have some 5-gallon buckets and a 50-gallon barrel that I thought I would do some Stomp-type activities as well.  With my biggest group signed up being 12, and only 30 minutes, I thought I could tolerate these noise-machines and throw together something different.

I have some Boomwhacker songs typed into a Mimio document.  While the trax was playing I just pointed to the letters and let them play away.  Buckets and drums could play on a pattern that matched the song and if they couldn't find it, they could just play on the beat or when I pointed.  The bass xylophone played whenever I pointed to the letter F.  It really added to the songs that were based in the key of F.  

We had enough time for every student to rotate through all of the instruments.  We also used the Octavator Caps on the Boomwhackers.  Adds a nice deep pitch to the songs.  Most of these students were in band so they were able to add good rhythm patterns.  These pictures show 5th graders which was a nice send-off from elementary to Middle School. 

4TH GRADE FUN

Ye Toop Doram.

This is the name of the song game we're playing in 4th and 5th grade these last days.  This is a traditional game from the Middle East.  Literally translated the words are I have the rock, and I roll the rock away.  It's in a minor key and is very easy to sing being in a different language.

The goal of the game is to not be tagged by the people passing the ball around the circle.  One person is inside the circle and are watching the 3 balls be passed around the circle during the A section.  During the bridge they count "yek, doh, seh" (1, 2, 3) and then begin rolling.  My only rule is that the ball must stay in contact with the floor.  They have the B section of the song to try and tag the person out.  Instead of repeating the section, they only have the 4 phrases to get them out.  This allows the game to move faster and more students to have a turn.

Here's a video of it in action.  With only 6 days of school left, the name of the game is Survive and playing games in music class helps the end stay in sight.

Countdown

These last weeks are a hodgepodge of activities in music class. I ask each class to make a list of some activities they want to do before summer. 

One of the big ticket items is riding noodle horses. 

Another great idea is pantyhose dancing. This sounds ridiculous but they love it. I purchased damaged pantyhose through Hanes. You just fax them that you want a box of misfits and they are yours. Each end is open so they put one on a hand and one end on a foot.  

Today I played "Happy" by Pharrell. Periodically, I stop the music and just tell them to join with someone else. The group sizes keep growing. I don't tell them how to join, they have to figure out how to make it work.

It's kind of a crazy web of 1st graders, but they are burning off mega energy.