Lesson #2: Math Masters

Greetings once again! This past Wednesday I taught my second lesson! I was particularly excited for this lesson because while the first one was super fun and I'd do it over and over again in a heartbeat, this lesson was the first true integration of music into a core subject. When collaborating with Mrs. Bevan a few weeks ago, one of the topics she really wants to see done with music is math. She informed me that her students just learned the numbers 0-10, so I wanted to incorporate some singing games into counting...and indirectly educate them on keeping a beat.

I began with our customary "Hello Song" (which they remembered so well from last week, which came as a relief!), and we went straight into the lesson. After getting all the students to sit "criss-cross-applesauce" on the blue borders of the rug (this was a cute yet frustrating process because they all wanted to sit as close to me as possible), I asked them if they remembered the "walking beats" and "jogging beats" we learned last time, to which they all exclaimed, "Yeah!" I had them "walk" and "jog" with their hands on their laps, changing as I did, and stopping as I did. Then while we all kept the walking beats, I began singing "High Stepping Horses (3x walking) go jiggity jiggity (jogging hands) jog!" On jog, we all stopped. Even when we sang it a second time, the kids were already joining me in singing! It was fantastic.

Now we got into counting. I started singing "Johnny works with one hammer..." and then on the next verse "Johnny works with two," and each verse goes all the way to five, after which "Johnny goes to sleep." Everyone loved this game; when I asked if we should help Johnny again, the kids all exclaimed "YEAH!" They all giggled and said "what?" every time we had three or four hammers and used our legs as hammers, and on the fifth hammer we used our arms, legs, and our HEAD. This was funny to them. (Left: us working with three hammers: both arms and one leg.)

To segway into the next song, I introduced it saying that this song goes "allllll the way to number 10! I don't know if you guys can do that yet...can we do that?" to which they all answered enthusiastically. This song is called "Angel Band", and the tune goes, "There was one, there were two, there were three little angels, there were four, there were five, there were six little angels, there were seven, there were eight, there were nine little angels, ten little angels in the band" which was followed by a chorus which went, "Oh wasn't that a band, Monday morning, Monday morning, Monday morning! Wasn't that a band, Monday morning, Monday morning come soon" (except since it was a Wednesday, I replaced "Monday" with "Wednesday" so the kids could understand which day of the week it truly was. When I sang this song for them for the first time, I held up my fingers as I counted each little angel, and the kids naturally followed along counting on their fingers as well. During the chorus, we all clap on the beat (1 2 3 4 etc.). **Something I notice about every time I start singing a song: the kids always start singing with you right away so they can do as you do, which is adorable. I love seeing and hearing them so eager for the next thing.**

After we did the song
two times in its entirety, I brought out number signs I drew up in the morning just hours before my lesson, numbered 1-10 (shown above...I must say, I never write in block letters or numbers, and I am really proud of myself and how these numbers turned out!). I passed these number signs out to ten students sitting in a row around the circle, and when we sang the song this time, each child with a sign was to hold up their number when we sang their number. An excited glow ignited in their eyes when it came their turn, and one boy was especially excited and swooped up energetically when number "6" came along. I then gave the numbers 1-10 to the other half of the circle so they would have a turn recognizing their number.

I got to my Goodbye Song this time! "Goodbye, goodbye, it was very nice to see you. Goodbye, goodbye, I am on my way." We all waved to each other and I left in high spirits once again. It was the perfect way to leave them before I see them next Friday.

Lesson #1 = Lovin' this!

So,  a week ago today I taught my very first lesson to those darling kindergartners. And what a thrilling joy that was! I spent a whole hour sitting in my car at a park and re-reviewing my lesson plan a gazillion times so I wouldn't miss a single item on the agenda. The whole morning a butterfly colony took over my stomach; I hoped for the best and expected...well, what hopefully would be the best!

It being my first legitimate lesson with this class, I knew I needed to start with the basics in music. My lesson plan was as follows:

1) Hello Song
2) Vocal Play - Mr. Wiggle and Mr. Waggle (pitch exploration)
3) "Come and Follow Me in a Line" (social interactions and responding to physical cues)
4) Drum Beat Activity ("walking" *quarter* notes and "jogging" *eighth* notes and "rests")
5) Transition to "High Stepping Horses" (distinguish between "walking" and "jogging" notes and be able to keep a steady beat with the song)
6) Goodbye Song

The very first principle elementary music teachers need to remember is that you MUST MUST MUST establish a routine with your students. If you don't have a set routine to organize your activities, the children will not pay the best of attention because their minds will eventually drift anywhere but where you are in the lesson. For this reason I implemented a simple Hello Song to set the tone (pun intended) for the kids to start getting engaged and follow along with me. In the same manner, I planned to end with a Goodbye Song so the children perceive a sense of closure for me to return them to Mrs. Bevan for the rest of the day. Both the Hello and Goodbye songs need to be simple so the students can catch on quickly. My Hello Song consisted of them echoing each phrase back to me: "Hello there!", "How are you?", "It's so good," "to see you," "We'll sing and," "be happy," then all together we sing "We're all here together again!" employing the simple interval between Sol and Mi and between Sol and Fa until the final descending line ending on Do. It worked perfectly because apparently in their classes with Mrs. Bevan they learned what an "echo" means, and this song assess and developed their knowledge fantastically!

Next we played Mr. Wiggle and Mr. Waggle. The left hand plays Mr. Wiggle, and the right hand

plays Mr. Waggle. This game is a vocal play because with these characters we tell a story. In this story they have to travel "up the hill and down the hill and up the hill and down the hill..." until they get to each other's houses. This was very fun for the children because when it was each character's turn to travel they got to move their hands up and down. We explore pitch in this way because when I tell the story, my voice travels up and down respectively to where Mr. Wiggle or Mr. Waggle are on the hills. The coolest part about this was eventually, by the middle of the story, I was able to ask, "Where does he go?" and in response the children themselves would initiate the pitch phrase of "up the hill and down the hill..." It made my heart soar to hear them vocalize so confidently. It was a blast!

"Come and Follow Me in a Line" is a follow-the-leader-type game. I really appreciated Mrs. Bevan's help with this part of the lesson because we had to get all 20-something kids in a line behind me. It worked beautifully. Everyone follows me in a marching line, singing the words to the song until I end singing with, "we will stop this WAY!" and on "way," I strike a pose or stop in some silly manner and the kids have to copy what I do. It took a couple of tries for them to get it right, but after the start there were giggles and smiles everywhere as they did as I did. I led them back to their open floor space, and getting them into a circle was easy because all Mrs. Bevan had me say was "stand on the blue edge on the rug," which was the border of the rug. Genius way to get them where they need to be!

At this point in the lesson, I had to make a quick choice. I only had maybe three minutes left of the day, and I hadn't gotten to where I planned to end yet! My executive decision was to just finish with the drum activity; the song "High-Stepping Horses" would serve as a great way to tie into the next lesson what we learned in today's lesson. Music teachers have to make these types of choices all of the time in order to prioritize what needs to be done more than another. For today, the drum activity would have to be the best way to end. I grabbed a hand drum (shaped like a tambourine; I'll get a picture of it at my next lesson) with a mallet and told the students to mimic walking to this beat in place. I asked them if I want to go faster, what do I do instead? A little girl to my left started running in place, but I was careful to use the work "jogging" so some of the craziest of boys wouldn't get carried away with the allowance to RUN. Then I stopped the mallet on the drum, and everyone stopped. Congratulating them on following me so well, I kept transitioning between the three options so the children would respond in time with me, walking and jogging and stopping in whatever I gave them. They absolutely loved it.

My time had clear run out at this point. I didn't even get the chance to sing the Goodbye Song because Mrs. Bevan kind of swooped in a little too soon to get them ready for the school's surprise assembly. For today, a simple "goodbye!" and waving from everyone sufficed, and everyone was in good spirits to continue the day.

That was some of the most fun 20 minutes of my life! Before today I was incredibly nervous to teach so young of kids and to be responsible for their learning of music in a meaningful way. And it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought! In fact, there was no lick of badness to be found at all. Apologies for the lack of pictures; I'm developing a better system for picture-taking for future lessons. I eagerly look forward to Lesson #2 this week, and together the children and I will keep progressing in musical literacies while also learning important life skills and lessons. I love my job!

So the Adventure Begins!

And this adventure is going to be a fantastic one! My name is Korrin Reese, and I am recently hired as a Music Specialist through Brigham Young University's ArtsBridge program. BYU ArtsBridge is a fine arts internship that allows us to put our practices to the test as future educators in public schools. Music is what I love to do most, and teaching music comes at even a greater delight! As I am studying K-12 Choral Music Education at BYU, this opportunity is one that I greatly cherish as I begin developing my professional career...while still studying as an undergraduate student!

First, a brief background of myself. As aforementioned, I love music. This fact has been evident throughout my entire life, as I began performing at age 8 singing Disney songs with the help of my mom's piano accompaniment. Music touched me at such a young age and led me to thoroughly enjoy sharing it with others. I sang in every choir possible throughout my years in grade school, and this was my sole mode of vocal training. Something about the pluralized voice brought me such rejuvenation and great passion for expressing what could not be expressed with the simple spoken word. I developed close relationships with my choral directors each year, so close in fact that I started imagining myself in their shoes. Choir and vocal performance have been such inseparable components of my life for as long as I could remember, both to fulfill myself and to spread a positive spirit to those I reach with music...how could I ever bring myself to stop doing it? Well, I couldn't! My senior year of high school I decided to study Choral Music Education. Having now been accepted to the program and been studying its courses for just over a year, I know I made one of the best choices of my life (behind choosing my recently-officialized husband, of course ;) ).
BYU ArtsBridge provides a unique circumstance for me because I get to work in an elementary school, here in Provo. I have served as a vocal jazz director and section leader in high school and currently in BYU Concert Choir, so I have had extensive experience working with adept youth and trained colleagues. I now get to attain experience with the opposite end of the spectrum, specifically kindergarten. Never did I dream that I would be working with such a young class so soon in my life! Such a task loomed in my mind as an intimidating undertaking; I'll be working with very young brains which may or may not have had any musical exposure in their single-digited lives. My call to introduce music to them and make it meaningful humbles me to work very carefully with the material given me in my Elementary General Music Methods Class acquired last Winter semester. Returning to the most basic of the basics, I'm learning things about music I've never applied further than for my elementary music course at BYU. Now, I am being put to the test in real life!

We've had two trainings to prepare us for our visits into the schools. The first was simply introductory: how to start our blog (which I have NEVER before thought of doing ever in my life), what to consider when preparing our lesson plans, how to integrate music (in my case. There are three other arts approaches involved in ArtsBridge: theatre, dance, and visual arts) into the core subjects of our elementary classes, and a review of the State of Utah education standards to accomplish when teaching our respective arts approaches. It really prepared me to get into 100% teacher mode; I'm no longer just a college student...I am a professional teacher!



The second training served for us to meet our teachers with whom we would be interning and collaborating. I am working with Mrs. Coleen Bevan, a sweet Kindergarten teacher who exudes a deep care for her children. She enlightened me about the demographics of the children in her class and what specific concepts she'd like to teach the children through music. Together we developed an Integration Model (inserted above) where we brought our own training and experiences to the table and discovered how to intertwine them in a way that would make learning most meaningful. For example, some items we are considering include using music to teach social skills of interaction, how to read cues to respond to, learning the 5 Senses, exploring the 4 Seasons, all while integrating pitch exploration, beat patterns, and singing games. Leaving our meeting, I felt quite overwhelmed at my responsibility to successfully draw up weekly lesson plans that achieve both Mrs. Bevan's and my educative goals. Everything seemed to explode in my face and demand my attention all at once. Inadequacy dominated my mind, and I didn't know where to begin.

My mentor, Dr. Brittany May, who specializes in Elementary Music Education at BYU, came to my rescue! She set up an appointment with me on Monday (almost a week after this meeting) to talk about what my very first lesson to these children would be. I'd already visited Mrs. Bevan's class last Friday to observe the behaviors of the students and get acquainted with the space I will have to execute my plans. Dr. May and I compiled ideas of songs and games and precepts to introduce to the children, and once I had a rough outline of my first lesson plan I felt much better! I was fired up and ready to start!

Details of my first lesson will be forthcoming in my next blog post. I am ever so grateful for this opportunity I have through BYU ArtsBridge to put my educative skills to practice and hone said skills in the actual field of the classroom. I avidly look forward to what I will gain and how music will impact these kindergartners!