What’s a record?
Student: “What are those in the black cases?”
Me: “They’re records. Have you seen a record player before?”
Another student: “No, those are something they used in the olden days.”
All of my students were born in the current millenium, so I wonder how many of them have seen cassette tapes before. I’ve mostly used my iPod, which is an amazing tool for elementary general music classes! But now they’re begging me to hear what a record sounds like…
October highlights
Halloween provided ample opportunities for vocal exploration, including lots of ghost sounds, and expanding the movement vocabulary - a student added “waddle” last week during the pumpkin patch chant, hehe.
One first grade class created a game for our cat/mouse song, which lent itself to assessing tonal patterns. I used it with all of the first grades and it was so successful that they were asking me on Halloween parade day to play it.
We started Learning Sequence Activities, which I was nervous about, but the students are doing well as long as they know exactly how long they need to sit for. I am also starting to see how much more help they need exploring their singing voices.
My record keeping expanded to the point where one day, various clipboards and binders covered half of the table at the front of the room, and I ended up knocking three things in the garbage by mistake in one class. I have since organized it better, and I am getting more insight to my students’ various needs.
November will bring first grade informances, or informal performances, and much more vocal exploration! We are taking pretend “walks in the woods” starting next week, I can’t wait to see what animals and sounds they discover!
Homemade musical instruments
I came across this site the other day and thought about using some of the ideas with my Montessori class that comes to music four times a week. Anyone know of any other children’s instrument-making resources?
I am also considering indoor/outdoor listening walks (fits in with their sensory-based curriculum) and classroom instruments exploration centers.
Music Room Centers
Orange, black, green, purple, red, yellow, and blue! Now onto thinking of projects to do at those centers, since I see Montessori K/1 four times a week!
Music Room Detailed
Points of interest:
- Office, including motivational quotes & hand-braided recorder neck strap
- Classroom instruments display, will post names as students learn them
- Michigan State Standards
- Gong, ocean drum, PUPPETS!, plentiful guiros
- Risers for LSAs
- Maps, will post song titles as the year goes on
- Storage area, including many things I have not yet looked through :P
- BARK guidelines (school-wide behavior modification system) with music class illustrations by yours truly
- Stereo with iPod hook-up!
Music Room Overview
This is where I have been for the past week. Tim and I finished setting it up on Saturday, and I was finally able to clean my apartment after that! I was thinking of ordering one of those engraved wooden signs to say, “My apartment is a mess, but my classroom…” I may still need to do that, let’s see how this week goes.
New job = joy & puppets!
I’m starting a new music teaching job this week at a school for grades Pre-K through 1st grade. One of the first things I wanted to do after I finished jumping up and down was to find some puppets, to encourage vocal exploration and elicit responses. I came across these from Melissa & Doug:
Pony Puppet (old stand-by)
Make-Your-Own Monster Puppet - I remember someone using these at Ithaca College, maybe having students sing patterns and then put a piece on the puppet.
This could be a fun way to introduce chord roots with students, while getting a work-out! One of my classmates at the MLT certification course this summer did a similar activity where he tossed two different colored hacky sacks - one was the tonic pitch and the other was dominant -and had the class sing the pitches while he performed the song. Then he added a third unnamed one and juggled, it was a really engaging activity!
Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale (via World Science Festival 2009 on Vimeo and @vickytnz)You could do worse things with the next three minutes than watch this.
The value of musical interaction, à la Eisner
From Elliot W. Eisner’s “What Does It Mean To Say a School Is Doing Well?” (2001), published in Flinders & Thornton’s “Curriculum Studies Reader” (2004):
“As we focus on standards, rubrics, and measurement, the deep problems of schooling go unattended…We need to provide opportunities for youngsters and adolescents to engage in challenging kinds of conversation, and we need to help them learn how to do so” (pp. 299-300).
When I taught elementary music, I was sure that I had all of my ducks in a row as far as meeting the National and State Standards for Music, and assessing areas such as singing voice development, tonal and rhythm pattern achievement, and composition proficiency. Despite my efforts, it often felt like there was a wall between my students and I. I knew that there were many musical personalities in the room but I wasn’t always sure how to engage them. Sure, I could entertain them by having them imitate drum patterns or songs, and even have them improvise or create their own patterns, though this often resulted in more mathematical than musical creations. Still, my administrators and even other music educators applauded me for finding ways to meet the standards and assess efficiently.
I would have traded a majority of this efficiency for an ounce of better understanding of my students’ musicianship and more meaningful ways to interact with them musically. At that time, the standards and assessment strategies actually distracted me from developing musicianship. Even with the best intentions in mind, I had superficially placed these tools on an unsteady foundation that lacked what I have since learned to be at the core of good teaching – interaction.
Music interactions are the most powerful ways to engage musical personalities and develop students’ understanding of musical language. I recently taught an early childhood music class where the walls seemed to be ringing with purposeful responses from my students, ages 6 months to 24 months. By singing and chanting to my students and echoing their responses, I was guiding them through their understanding of music. These crawlers and toddlers were anticipating the pull of dominant to tonic, singing resting tone, and echoing patterns.
Our voluntary National Standards provide great guidelines for diversifying instruction, and my Masters thesis will focus on the use of formal assessment methods, including rubrics and measurement, to improve instruction. I think Eisner is frustrated that too much focus is being taken away from interacting with students in ways that encourage them to think at higher levels. I am thrilled that I have found many creative ways to interact with students since learning about music learning theory and teaching early childhood music, and that I can now interweave the standards and assessment types into a stronger instructional model.
