On Wednesday I had an *excellent* lesson with one of the reception classes. It was one of those things where it all just worked and I'm still excited about it, so here you go:
This class has an autistic boy (Q.) in it. He likes music and catches on quickly but frequently will respond in a way that, while showcasing that he is paying attention and enjoying himself, is disruptive to the rest of the class. Like humming the tune of a recording we're using over and over again for the whole lesson or rolling up the carpet in time to the music (the tykes are supposed to be sitting on the carpet...) So he's someone to keep an eye on and I always try, to the best of my ability, to incorporate whatever he's brought to the lesson while still getting the point across to the rest of the class- but he does end up sitting out fairly regularly.
So this Wednesday I had a small djembe with me and Q. started hollering out "That drum is Thai!" I tried to tell him and the rest of the class that it was an African drum but Q. kept insisting that it was Thai. Now, probably I could have just left this because is it important? No. But I didn't just leave it, I looked on the label and it turned out that the drum was actually made in the US, so I told the tykes that.
"Who else is from the US? Raise your hand!" there are two American tykes in the class so that left three of us with our hands raised.
Enter Q. "You're not from America, you're from Spain!" Oh, am I now? Cool. "No! Not Spain, space" Ah. Excellent! We can use that! So we made rocket ships with our arms and shot them up into space while vocalizing up a scale and then the rocket ship was shooting from side to side so we sang along with that as well and then the rocket ship crashed on to...wait, what planet is Miss Casey from? Can we have a vote? Right, the moon won so the rocket ship crashes on to the moon: BOOM!
But N. wasn't happy with that (which was just fine for my vocal warm up because it meant that we got to do it all again! ) and so the second time we blasted off from Earth, flew around space, and then N. caught our ship and placed us gently on the moon where we met some aliens. Cowboy aliens, actually, since Miss Casey is a Lunar American. Then we put on our cowboy boots, made some alien noises, and galloped around on space horses. Physical and vocal warm up? Done!
Then I taught the song about flowers that we're going to be working on for the next couple of weeks. The actions can get quite complicated and the song is very pretty as well so the class naturally broke down into two groups- the dancers and the singers. (They did this on their own, by the way.) They were doing such a good job at that point of offering their own suggestions for things that I decided to leave it up to them what colors the flowers were- which then led to another whole class vote between "very red and bright" and "purple and red." (very red won by a narrow margin.) They sang with such big voices and were so. in. to. it. I had the most fun I've had teaching ever and actually bounced down the stairs to find Linda immediately after the lesson to recount the whole thing to her.
The best part was that Q. was totally engaged and actively participating the whole time.
Go tykes!
Showing posts with label lessons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lessons. Show all posts
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tykes' Teachers Get Assessed
My mid year assessment was meant to have happened weeks ago, but due to a number of reasons(unexpected visiting doctors during "people who help us week" and an instrumental concert) it happened today.
Linda was my assessor and even though I have now been at school for a year (official! I started last year right after spring-term half-term break and half-term break starts next week so I have now done a full and complete year cycle.) I had yet to go through an assessment. Now, Linda and I work together every week- we teach club together on Wednesdays and we've done quite a lot of planning for the department together- so Linda ought not to be intimidating. She wasn't really intimidating so much as the concept of being assessed was intimidating. In spite of regularly being told by my co-workers that I am doing a good job, I am still convinced that I'm due for a talking to at any. moment.
I had filled out an Official Lesson Plan form with things like "Key Learning Intentions (WALT)" ... and "Plenary" .... I think this is one of those places where if I actually had teacher training I would know what these things meant. As it was I listed what concepts we were covering and how we would review the songs at the end of the class.
The lesson went well. We worked on Staccato (short and discrete) and Legato (connected) in the form of Frogs and Snakes as well as continuing work on our "Do You Know The Story" song.
We've already listened to staccato sounds and jumped like frogs on the down beat, and last week we listened to legato sounds and moved our hands like undulating snakes. This week I introduced the idea of using our voices like Frogs and Snakes (super short, barking out each syllable individually or completely slurred together). We started by repeating the names of our teachers in the style of whichever laminated picture I was holding up that we we were working on and then moved on to repeating all the tykes' names in that manner as well.
Following all that we reviewed "Do You Know The Story" and tried out writing and singing some new verses. Then we sang the verses with "frog" (staccato) voices and "snake" (legato) voices.
So there you go. There were some warm up and ending things as well- but pretty much- that is what the meat of one of my lessons looks like. The kids did a very good job with the staccato/legato contrast and though I really should have set up the writing of new verses in a different way a couple of lessons ago- they still came up with some interesting and fun verses today as well. Mostly about Power Rangers.
Part of the assessment is immediately sitting down with your assessor and talking about how the lesson went. There is also a written portion that Linda gets to write up tonight. She said that I had an exciting and engaging manner with the kids and I that I was very clear with both what I was doing and with what I wanted the tykes to do. Also that the lesson plan was excellent. (Woo!) She said these things a couple of times and a couple of different ways and I'm sure my facial expressions were concerning her but I couldn't relax until I got to hear what I needed to work on. (Casey! Relax!)
What I need to work on is classroom management- I'm very positive with the tykes- praising good behavior and pointing out kids who are correctly modeling what I'm looking for, but I need to gain more confidence and the authority or presence or whatever that is that means that the kids do what I ask them to the first time I ask them. Also- the teachers in the classroom. A lot of the time a considerable amount of noise is coming from the classroom teachers or assistants who use my class as an opportunity to catch up on things around the room like typing, tutoring one of the tykes (seriously?), chatting with the other teachers, microwaving the tykes' lunches, and today: stuffing a bunch of plastic bags into another plastic bag. (The bags were so loud that I actually did ask her to stop, which was fine, but everything else? Not so much.)
The other thing I need to work on is Plenary (apparently the final section of a traditional three part lesson...huh. I still don't know what WALT stands for.) And Linda and I are going to continue to work on that. We came up with some good ideas that might help both issues- namely small group work and giving creative or quizzing tasks to pairs of tykes. So all in all? Good.
Linda was my assessor and even though I have now been at school for a year (official! I started last year right after spring-term half-term break and half-term break starts next week so I have now done a full and complete year cycle.) I had yet to go through an assessment. Now, Linda and I work together every week- we teach club together on Wednesdays and we've done quite a lot of planning for the department together- so Linda ought not to be intimidating. She wasn't really intimidating so much as the concept of being assessed was intimidating. In spite of regularly being told by my co-workers that I am doing a good job, I am still convinced that I'm due for a talking to at any. moment.
I had filled out an Official Lesson Plan form with things like "Key Learning Intentions (WALT)" ... and "Plenary" .... I think this is one of those places where if I actually had teacher training I would know what these things meant. As it was I listed what concepts we were covering and how we would review the songs at the end of the class.
The lesson went well. We worked on Staccato (short and discrete) and Legato (connected) in the form of Frogs and Snakes as well as continuing work on our "Do You Know The Story" song.
We've already listened to staccato sounds and jumped like frogs on the down beat, and last week we listened to legato sounds and moved our hands like undulating snakes. This week I introduced the idea of using our voices like Frogs and Snakes (super short, barking out each syllable individually or completely slurred together). We started by repeating the names of our teachers in the style of whichever laminated picture I was holding up that we we were working on and then moved on to repeating all the tykes' names in that manner as well.
Following all that we reviewed "Do You Know The Story" and tried out writing and singing some new verses. Then we sang the verses with "frog" (staccato) voices and "snake" (legato) voices.
So there you go. There were some warm up and ending things as well- but pretty much- that is what the meat of one of my lessons looks like. The kids did a very good job with the staccato/legato contrast and though I really should have set up the writing of new verses in a different way a couple of lessons ago- they still came up with some interesting and fun verses today as well. Mostly about Power Rangers.
Part of the assessment is immediately sitting down with your assessor and talking about how the lesson went. There is also a written portion that Linda gets to write up tonight. She said that I had an exciting and engaging manner with the kids and I that I was very clear with both what I was doing and with what I wanted the tykes to do. Also that the lesson plan was excellent. (Woo!) She said these things a couple of times and a couple of different ways and I'm sure my facial expressions were concerning her but I couldn't relax until I got to hear what I needed to work on. (Casey! Relax!)
What I need to work on is classroom management- I'm very positive with the tykes- praising good behavior and pointing out kids who are correctly modeling what I'm looking for, but I need to gain more confidence and the authority or presence or whatever that is that means that the kids do what I ask them to the first time I ask them. Also- the teachers in the classroom. A lot of the time a considerable amount of noise is coming from the classroom teachers or assistants who use my class as an opportunity to catch up on things around the room like typing, tutoring one of the tykes (seriously?), chatting with the other teachers, microwaving the tykes' lunches, and today: stuffing a bunch of plastic bags into another plastic bag. (The bags were so loud that I actually did ask her to stop, which was fine, but everything else? Not so much.)
The other thing I need to work on is Plenary (apparently the final section of a traditional three part lesson...huh. I still don't know what WALT stands for.) And Linda and I are going to continue to work on that. We came up with some good ideas that might help both issues- namely small group work and giving creative or quizzing tasks to pairs of tykes. So all in all? Good.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Singing Lesson
I had my first singing lesson with Jilly today. (That's Ella's mum for those of you who don't know.) It was super fun and excellent. We are working on using my voice properly and freeing it really, making sure that I can make a big, relaxed sound so that when I'm teaching my tykes I can model good singing habits. We geared the lesson specifically towards my teaching which was great because it immediately felt useful. This did mean, however, that I spent the majority of the lesson sitting on the floor (learn how you mean to use the skill, right?)
The mechanics of singing are just fascinating- we worked with relaxing my jaw and accessing different parts of my voice and different techniques to bypass various physical and mental blocks. The muscles involved are, for the most part, small and not readily visible (what with being down your throat) so they way that you teach and learn singing is basically by metaphor (and then, of course, by the sound that you manage to produce.)By the end of the lesson my voice was HUGE. And I'm not going to lie: I'm pretty pleased with that. At this point what I feel I most need to get a handle on is breathing and how to do that properly and efficiently. We're having another lesson next month when she comes back down to London again. I'm looking forward to it.
The mechanics of singing are just fascinating- we worked with relaxing my jaw and accessing different parts of my voice and different techniques to bypass various physical and mental blocks. The muscles involved are, for the most part, small and not readily visible (what with being down your throat) so they way that you teach and learn singing is basically by metaphor (and then, of course, by the sound that you manage to produce.)By the end of the lesson my voice was HUGE. And I'm not going to lie: I'm pretty pleased with that. At this point what I feel I most need to get a handle on is breathing and how to do that properly and efficiently. We're having another lesson next month when she comes back down to London again. I'm looking forward to it.
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