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!