Sunday was Palm Sunday so we went to Southwark Cathedral. We had visited earlier on when Laine was here and decided that they seemed like particularly nice people. We also felt that it would be a smaller, less crowded Palm Sunday than St. Paul's. The procession began at 10:30 in the Borough market, so in order to make sure that we would get there in time we left my flat at 9am. However, the bus was trucking along- and we made it there before 10. This ended up being just fine because that meant that we met Michelle. Michelle is originally from Chicago and seems to work for the Cathedral (we never did find out exactly what she does...) Michelle was very chatty and not only helped us figure out *where* in Borough market we were meant to be, but also had a fun time talking with us about the realities of Americans living in London.
For the procession they had the congregation line up on either side of a random road in the market. We sang songs as a whole group with the accompaniment of two painfully bad trumpeters. I kept catching the eyes of people across the aisle as the trumpets messed up *again* and then struggled to keep from laughing. Fortunately everyone seemed to be pretty good natured about the terrible, terrible trumpets. They were so bad that the congregation had to sing loudly and forcefully to keep the tempo/melody/tune/really any musical element you can think of- steady. Finally the choir came out, some more hymns were sung, a bunch of holy water was splattered and incense jangled around. We processed in with the same first hymn again and the beginning of the procession, the end of the line, and the trumpeters were all in completely different places in the song...
The service was long, involved a LOT of standing, and a lot of intonation. Grammy and I both decided that we think the people are wonderful, but we are not excited about the services at Southwark.
Afterwards we found the coffee area and sat at a little table and watched children race about. Michelle came and found us again and we had another great conversation with her before exchanging phone numbers. Grammy noticed that the patio we were sitting on also belonged to the Cathedral's cafe- so we went and had lunch there. Very nice chicken pies with carrots and thick cut french fries.
That evening my friend Sarah came round and we had vegetable stew, home made scones with clotted cream butter, and watched Amelie together before having a sleepover.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Travels with Grammy
We've been having an eventful yet relaxing time here in London. Leisurely breakfasts followed by jaunts into town or around my neighborhood.
On Saturday we decided that we ought to see a show so we got tickets to a performance of The Messiah at St. Martin's in the Field. That was in the evening so we decided to go explore my school area and look around. We took the bus down to GSMD and took a quick tour around the school. It was a lovely day so we bought lunch from Marks and Spencer's and ate in the public bowling green in front of my Finsbury job. Grammy wanted to see the Roman amphitheatre so we walked down to The Guildhall and managed to get there just as the art gallery went from being charged to being free. Well timed us! The art gallery was lovely and it was fun to see the amphitheatre as well. It was hard to believe that the ruins were so old. Particularly as they are bathed in this weird green light and there is an audio track of a crowd cheering/jeering and gladiators running around. It's actually just the tiniest bit silly...
Grammy had seen the 14th century hall that *is* the Guildhall before so we spent a confusing few minutes debating which building off the square it was likely to be. Eventually we figured out that we needed to enter a truly hideous 1960's entryway. The hall had been closed to visitors half an hour before we got there, so that was a little disappointing. I noticed that there were GSMD fliers in their flier area and since I had understood that there was NOT a connection between The Guildhall and GSMD (in spite of the name) I asked about it. It turns out that GSMD is sponsored by the City of London Corporation and The Guildhall is the heart of The City's government. So that is the connection. Once the security guards found out that I went to GSMD and that I was graduating this year, one of them offered to take us back to the hall! So that was SUPER cool. We felt very privileged. Also, it turns out that GSMD has its graduation ceremony in the hall- so it was exciting to see where that is going to take place.
There was lovely early evening light at that point so we walked to St. Paul's and had a quick coffee in Starbucks while Grammy told me stories about Helen. Then Starbucks closed so we hopped on a bus to Trafalgar square. We got some soup in the Crypt, which was very crowded- but a nice woman saw us looking for a table and offered us hers as she was just about to leave. We collected the tickets and were there right as the doors opened for the show. I hadn't been there since the remodeling was finished and it is absolutely gorgeous now. We didn't have the most expensive tickets so our view was pretty poor- but the acoustics were wonderful and it was a total joy. I spent a lot of time watching flickering candle light glinting off of the gold leaf of the ceiling decorations while listening to Handel's recitatives and soaring choral soprano lines. We moved to wider seats at the intermission- for which I was grateful.
See? Doesn't that sound like a delightful day?
On Saturday we decided that we ought to see a show so we got tickets to a performance of The Messiah at St. Martin's in the Field. That was in the evening so we decided to go explore my school area and look around. We took the bus down to GSMD and took a quick tour around the school. It was a lovely day so we bought lunch from Marks and Spencer's and ate in the public bowling green in front of my Finsbury job. Grammy wanted to see the Roman amphitheatre so we walked down to The Guildhall and managed to get there just as the art gallery went from being charged to being free. Well timed us! The art gallery was lovely and it was fun to see the amphitheatre as well. It was hard to believe that the ruins were so old. Particularly as they are bathed in this weird green light and there is an audio track of a crowd cheering/jeering and gladiators running around. It's actually just the tiniest bit silly...
Grammy had seen the 14th century hall that *is* the Guildhall before so we spent a confusing few minutes debating which building off the square it was likely to be. Eventually we figured out that we needed to enter a truly hideous 1960's entryway. The hall had been closed to visitors half an hour before we got there, so that was a little disappointing. I noticed that there were GSMD fliers in their flier area and since I had understood that there was NOT a connection between The Guildhall and GSMD (in spite of the name) I asked about it. It turns out that GSMD is sponsored by the City of London Corporation and The Guildhall is the heart of The City's government. So that is the connection. Once the security guards found out that I went to GSMD and that I was graduating this year, one of them offered to take us back to the hall! So that was SUPER cool. We felt very privileged. Also, it turns out that GSMD has its graduation ceremony in the hall- so it was exciting to see where that is going to take place.
There was lovely early evening light at that point so we walked to St. Paul's and had a quick coffee in Starbucks while Grammy told me stories about Helen. Then Starbucks closed so we hopped on a bus to Trafalgar square. We got some soup in the Crypt, which was very crowded- but a nice woman saw us looking for a table and offered us hers as she was just about to leave. We collected the tickets and were there right as the doors opened for the show. I hadn't been there since the remodeling was finished and it is absolutely gorgeous now. We didn't have the most expensive tickets so our view was pretty poor- but the acoustics were wonderful and it was a total joy. I spent a lot of time watching flickering candle light glinting off of the gold leaf of the ceiling decorations while listening to Handel's recitatives and soaring choral soprano lines. We moved to wider seats at the intermission- for which I was grateful.
See? Doesn't that sound like a delightful day?
Friday, April 3, 2009
Visitors!
I don't know if you know this, but some people have been visiting...Lainey left on Wednesday, but Grammy is still here with me and now I have photos from her camera! Up there at the top we've got Laine and me on the Millennium Bridge in front of St. Paul's on our way to the Tate Modern (Laine's favoritest museum) and the other picture is of the three of us in their hotel room right before Laine left. We managed to get the self timer working and set the camera on top of Laine's shoe box (You should ask her about the shoes, they are AMAZING. Really.)
We've been having a lovely time and today Grammy and I are on our way down to the Borough Market to go check it out. Yesterday we went to Dalston market and bought some vegetables and some African fabric. Dalston is amazing because as you're walking down the stalls it gets very confusing to figure out what country you're actually in. Even the shop signs are done in African styles. It's a lot of fun. We both decided that we wouldn't want to buy fish there though...too much sun.
Temporary Tykes
My friend Kate teaches a drop in nursery class at a community centre in Hackney. She's been sick so she asked me to fill in. Thanks, Kate! It was a bit different from what I am used to doing; there were a couple of parents there as well as a small class from the nursery school across the street. Also, the class was an hour long instead of half an hour.
Kate told me what she normally does with them last night and I was getting intimidated: I've never incorporated stories into my classes! Shown instruments?! She was saying that they're good with rhythms and there were parents and it was long and it was my first time and OH!! I was nervous by the time I got there this morning.
I decided that the theme for the day was going to be "Springtime" because, hey. It is. So I wrote a list of what songs and activities fit in to that theme that I knew already and decided on an order that would alternate between careening wildly around the room and sitting down and trying to actually sing.
We started with Kalele, the name song with fun time drumming beats. I'm used to kids hiding their faces during this song or somehow otherwise drawing even MORE attention to themselves when their name is being sung. But this group was still being pretty shy since it was the beginning of the class.
Then we did the caterpillar song which involved hand motions and then body motions. (Sitting down and then standing up) We had wiggling, munching, spinning, and flapping. I would have preferred to have the teachers contribute ideas for the actions less and the kids contribute ideas more...but whatcha gonna do?
After the hilarity of spinning around in a circle was over we sang a seed growing song that sounds like a lovely lullaby. I don't have a very good sense of pitch- I can stay on key when I'm singing the song, but it's always a bit of a surprise what key is going to come out when I start. I accidentally started this song WAAAY too high. The teachers and mothers were trying to sing along but it wasn't going to happen. So I stopped halfway through and dropped it a fifth. Looks like I might be a soprano after all....
The chorus of that song has the line "and the rain falls, drip drop" so the next thing we did was a body percussion rainstorm. It's nice because they have to look and pay attention to the conductor/director (me) which is a lovely set up for the next thing we did which was a rainstorm again, but this time with instruments.
With the shakers I have a system where if the leader has their shaker above their head: you play loud. By their knees? play soft. Held tightly pressed against their stomach? Quiet! No sound! So I lead it first for a while and then the best behaved kids lead it. It's a good system.
One of the children was totally cutting up the whole morning, but he did something really interesting during the instrumental section- whenever it was loud he started giggling. Whenever it was soft he stopped. And he would do it absolutely with the leader, even if the leader was one of his classmates. He'd been told off that morning so much that I wanted to draw particular attention to the fact that even if he didn't totally realize it- he was doing *exactly* what I wanted him to. Isn't that neat? I was so proud of him.
We finished up with Simama ka which is the big hit with the three year olds in these parts. Jumping up? Bending down? Whispering and yelling all in a very repetitive atmosphere?! Man oh MAN are they there!
So we ended with that.
No instrumental showings, no stories, and nearly a whole hour (50 minutes, but the nursery class was late. If we'd kept going I would have added in a song about an Easter egg hunt because I was PREPARED. Yes, yes I was.)
I gave my contact info to the woman running the centre and told her that if they ever needed a substitute again or even wanted to add another music class on another day during the week that I would be more than happy to help them out and that I really enjoyed their students. She said she particularly liked how kid centered the class had been.
Whee!
Kate told me what she normally does with them last night and I was getting intimidated: I've never incorporated stories into my classes! Shown instruments?! She was saying that they're good with rhythms and there were parents and it was long and it was my first time and OH!! I was nervous by the time I got there this morning.
I decided that the theme for the day was going to be "Springtime" because, hey. It is. So I wrote a list of what songs and activities fit in to that theme that I knew already and decided on an order that would alternate between careening wildly around the room and sitting down and trying to actually sing.
We started with Kalele, the name song with fun time drumming beats. I'm used to kids hiding their faces during this song or somehow otherwise drawing even MORE attention to themselves when their name is being sung. But this group was still being pretty shy since it was the beginning of the class.
Then we did the caterpillar song which involved hand motions and then body motions. (Sitting down and then standing up) We had wiggling, munching, spinning, and flapping. I would have preferred to have the teachers contribute ideas for the actions less and the kids contribute ideas more...but whatcha gonna do?
After the hilarity of spinning around in a circle was over we sang a seed growing song that sounds like a lovely lullaby. I don't have a very good sense of pitch- I can stay on key when I'm singing the song, but it's always a bit of a surprise what key is going to come out when I start. I accidentally started this song WAAAY too high. The teachers and mothers were trying to sing along but it wasn't going to happen. So I stopped halfway through and dropped it a fifth. Looks like I might be a soprano after all....
The chorus of that song has the line "and the rain falls, drip drop" so the next thing we did was a body percussion rainstorm. It's nice because they have to look and pay attention to the conductor/director (me) which is a lovely set up for the next thing we did which was a rainstorm again, but this time with instruments.
With the shakers I have a system where if the leader has their shaker above their head: you play loud. By their knees? play soft. Held tightly pressed against their stomach? Quiet! No sound! So I lead it first for a while and then the best behaved kids lead it. It's a good system.
One of the children was totally cutting up the whole morning, but he did something really interesting during the instrumental section- whenever it was loud he started giggling. Whenever it was soft he stopped. And he would do it absolutely with the leader, even if the leader was one of his classmates. He'd been told off that morning so much that I wanted to draw particular attention to the fact that even if he didn't totally realize it- he was doing *exactly* what I wanted him to. Isn't that neat? I was so proud of him.
We finished up with Simama ka which is the big hit with the three year olds in these parts. Jumping up? Bending down? Whispering and yelling all in a very repetitive atmosphere?! Man oh MAN are they there!
So we ended with that.
No instrumental showings, no stories, and nearly a whole hour (50 minutes, but the nursery class was late. If we'd kept going I would have added in a song about an Easter egg hunt because I was PREPARED. Yes, yes I was.)
I gave my contact info to the woman running the centre and told her that if they ever needed a substitute again or even wanted to add another music class on another day during the week that I would be more than happy to help them out and that I really enjoyed their students. She said she particularly liked how kid centered the class had been.
Whee!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The tykes: they be TINY
Today the little 'uns were supposed to go to Kew Gardens on a super special trip- which would have meant that I only taught the nursery children and then had the afternoon to do my lesson plans for next term- but the weather was changeable (sunny, rain, one person claimed they saw some snow) so they stayed at school and I had three surprise extra classes.
Fortunately I'm flexible and up for a challenge.
So I taught them a new song I found in a GOOD tiny tykes song book. Niki Davies, I am a fan. It was about plants growing and has a wonderful chorus that I found fun to sing- which is good as I got to sing it a lot.
The first verse is about a seed that is asleep under the ground. One of my nursery classes clearly needed a nap because their action for that was to lie face down on the floor and then stay there through the next 3 verses. The next few verses are about sprouting, growing leaves and waving in the wind, and flowering.
I have been the early years music teacher for five weeks now- and this is apparently about the amount of time that I needed to be really known by the nursery classes. The reception (kindergarten) classes have been pretty free with the hugs and cheek kisses for a while now, but there was a marked increase in affection from all of the nursery classes this week.
I go around to the various classrooms in the morning to both get a chance to spend time with the kids outside of music class and also to get them thinking about music class for the day. You know "Oh! Miss Casey is here....Simama Ka Simamamamama ka!" This morning Miss Kate, one of the nursery teachers, had me join in with their finger painting. I've still got fluorescent green paint stuck in random crevices around my fingernails. So much fun! Though it took a little bravery to shove my entire hand into the plate of paint...I haven't done that in quite a long time.
The best part of the day though was right as the kids were leaving- Laine and Grammy showed up! They had trekked all the way across the park to make it to the school. I paraded them around and sang one of the tyke's favorite songs with some reception stragglers whose parent's hadn't shown up yet. It was very satisfying to walk through the school with Laine and Grammy and A: realize how many of their names I do know now and B: have so many of them say "Good Afternoon, Miss Casey" and make a cursory attempt to shake my hand.
The tykes, they're pretty terrific
Fortunately I'm flexible and up for a challenge.
So I taught them a new song I found in a GOOD tiny tykes song book. Niki Davies, I am a fan. It was about plants growing and has a wonderful chorus that I found fun to sing- which is good as I got to sing it a lot.
The first verse is about a seed that is asleep under the ground. One of my nursery classes clearly needed a nap because their action for that was to lie face down on the floor and then stay there through the next 3 verses. The next few verses are about sprouting, growing leaves and waving in the wind, and flowering.
I have been the early years music teacher for five weeks now- and this is apparently about the amount of time that I needed to be really known by the nursery classes. The reception (kindergarten) classes have been pretty free with the hugs and cheek kisses for a while now, but there was a marked increase in affection from all of the nursery classes this week.
I go around to the various classrooms in the morning to both get a chance to spend time with the kids outside of music class and also to get them thinking about music class for the day. You know "Oh! Miss Casey is here....Simama Ka Simamamamama ka!" This morning Miss Kate, one of the nursery teachers, had me join in with their finger painting. I've still got fluorescent green paint stuck in random crevices around my fingernails. So much fun! Though it took a little bravery to shove my entire hand into the plate of paint...I haven't done that in quite a long time.
The best part of the day though was right as the kids were leaving- Laine and Grammy showed up! They had trekked all the way across the park to make it to the school. I paraded them around and sang one of the tyke's favorite songs with some reception stragglers whose parent's hadn't shown up yet. It was very satisfying to walk through the school with Laine and Grammy and A: realize how many of their names I do know now and B: have so many of them say "Good Afternoon, Miss Casey" and make a cursory attempt to shake my hand.
The tykes, they're pretty terrific
Thursday, March 12, 2009
I'm tired of tykes titles (but not tired of the tykes)
but clearly not yet tired of alliteration (as though that's ever going to happen.)
Yesterday was yet another fly by the seat of my pants operations. We sang a couple of songs from Tanzania that I learned way back at the beginning of last year- and they worked a treat.
The first one "Kalele" is a welcoming song that is great because you can put in each child's name (wonderful since I still am struggling with the names) and then they giggle or roll their eyes back in to their head (that was a weird reaction) or turn bright red or grin or curl up into a little ball.
Green class nursery is my first class each week and I feel a bit bad about them because they're the experiment class- is this going to work? Is this enough material? Do I bring the instruments out? Are they going to enjoy this? Is it engaging? I find all of this out in green class. Or rather, I begin to find this out and then refine as the day goes on.
The thing about 'Kalele' is that you can, at any point in the song, throw in this bit where you have a call and response "hey!" shouty thing- which is totally fun- but a helpful tip is to not do it after every child's name in a class of 20+ kids. Also, make sure that you're singing in head voice instead of chest voice so that you don't go totally hoarse by the time you get to blue class nursery. These are the sorts of things I learn in green class nursery. I felt bad about it too- because their attention was totally wandering by the time we got halfway through the group- but you can't not include half of their names, that would be *devastating* and you also can't totally change how the song goes halfway through. That would be totally bewildering.
I was pleased to hear after school that the playground/field area had been filled with song as everyone was singing the two songs that I taught this week. Apparently non-stop- which I can see would be annoying for the teachers, but I was chuffed.
I found out this week that I get to write a lesson plan grid for the next term with learning objectives, activities, resources, topic links, and learning outcomes. Surprise! I kind of love the fact that I have been given so much autonomy and am only beginning to have supervision now; in my third week of doing the job. I won't have a proper meeting with my upper school counterpart until next week at the earliest and I've been enjoying the ferreting out process of figuring out all that my job actually entails- things like writing a term long lesson plan.
Wednesday was gorgeous and I hadn't yet gone out to the garden- so I wandered around a bit after my last class and ended up getting heavily involved in a rocket ship trip with stops in Spain, Ecuador, and Tanzania to gather pebbles. I kept trying to leave and let them get on with playing by themselves, but my hand was very firmly grasped and it was clear that I was going to be staying. I loved that they didn't change how they were playing just because I was there- I was just another one of their playmates- albeit quite a lot larger.
Yesterday was yet another fly by the seat of my pants operations. We sang a couple of songs from Tanzania that I learned way back at the beginning of last year- and they worked a treat.
The first one "Kalele" is a welcoming song that is great because you can put in each child's name (wonderful since I still am struggling with the names) and then they giggle or roll their eyes back in to their head (that was a weird reaction) or turn bright red or grin or curl up into a little ball.
Green class nursery is my first class each week and I feel a bit bad about them because they're the experiment class- is this going to work? Is this enough material? Do I bring the instruments out? Are they going to enjoy this? Is it engaging? I find all of this out in green class. Or rather, I begin to find this out and then refine as the day goes on.
The thing about 'Kalele' is that you can, at any point in the song, throw in this bit where you have a call and response "hey!" shouty thing- which is totally fun- but a helpful tip is to not do it after every child's name in a class of 20+ kids. Also, make sure that you're singing in head voice instead of chest voice so that you don't go totally hoarse by the time you get to blue class nursery. These are the sorts of things I learn in green class nursery. I felt bad about it too- because their attention was totally wandering by the time we got halfway through the group- but you can't not include half of their names, that would be *devastating* and you also can't totally change how the song goes halfway through. That would be totally bewildering.
I was pleased to hear after school that the playground/field area had been filled with song as everyone was singing the two songs that I taught this week. Apparently non-stop- which I can see would be annoying for the teachers, but I was chuffed.
I found out this week that I get to write a lesson plan grid for the next term with learning objectives, activities, resources, topic links, and learning outcomes. Surprise! I kind of love the fact that I have been given so much autonomy and am only beginning to have supervision now; in my third week of doing the job. I won't have a proper meeting with my upper school counterpart until next week at the earliest and I've been enjoying the ferreting out process of figuring out all that my job actually entails- things like writing a term long lesson plan.
Wednesday was gorgeous and I hadn't yet gone out to the garden- so I wandered around a bit after my last class and ended up getting heavily involved in a rocket ship trip with stops in Spain, Ecuador, and Tanzania to gather pebbles. I kept trying to leave and let them get on with playing by themselves, but my hand was very firmly grasped and it was clear that I was going to be staying. I loved that they didn't change how they were playing just because I was there- I was just another one of their playmates- albeit quite a lot larger.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
This one just makes me laugh
As though they need any encouragement!
Sung to: "Are You Sleeping?"
I am special, I am special,
Look at me, Look at me.
A very special person,
A very special person
That is me, That is me.
Probably I should stop hanging out in the 'Me, Myself, & I' section of www.preschooleducation.com if all I am going to do is make fun of it.
Sung to: "Are You Sleeping?"
I am special, I am special,
Look at me, Look at me.
A very special person,
A very special person
That is me, That is me.
Probably I should stop hanging out in the 'Me, Myself, & I' section of www.preschooleducation.com if all I am going to do is make fun of it.
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