The Playground Connection

This past week 2nd grade learned a new game called "Hot potato, Pass it on".  I recently learned this from a website called Active Music Digital.  Instead of passing the "hot potato" as quickly as they can, the students learned that to play the game properly, they needed to bounce the ball to the metric beat (beginning of each measure in the song).  I love this game for many reasons:

1. ASSESSMENT:

I was able to assess if students do or do not feel the metric beat.  In first grade, we spend a lot of time understanding how to perform a steady beat, which does not come naturally to some students.  However, 2nd graders start to understand that steady beats are grouped and we can perform several different steady beats (micro beats: the subdivision of the beat; macro beats: the beat; and metric beats: the beginning of each measure or group of notes.)  I was surprised how many of my good steady beaters were having trouble finding the metric beat in our song, while for others it came as naturally as walking.  This formative assessment allowed me to gauge my student's progress and make changes to my upcoming lessons to accommodate the students who need more practice in this area.

2. SINGING:

The students enjoyed singing the song, even if we sang it 20 times in a row!  They loved it, everyone participated without reminders and everyone was singing with energy!

3. SOCIAL LESSONS:

While students got "out" during the game, it was not based on skill.  Getting out was simply based on chance.  Students learned that getting out may be undesirable, but it was part of the game.  This is a life lesson that children need to practice in order to understand how to control their feelings in similar situations in the future.

 

My favorite moment while teaching and playing this game was when one of my students said, "Hey!  We could play this on the playground!"  It is surprising how novel that concept is to the students.  Children learn first through play and yet there has become this disconnect between what we learn in the classroom and what we do outside of the classroom.  

Time outside the classroom, whether it be on the playground, at home, or in the comings and goings of our daily lives, should be time for students to practice what they are learning in school.  For my 2nd graders, taking the "Hot Potato" song to the playground is a great way to practice finding the meter of a song.  What they don't realize is that they can do this with any song that they know!

Parents can cultivate the idea of bringing school learning into daily life by modeling ways that children can take the concepts they are learning and applying it to a real situation.  If your child is learning addition skills, simply turn an everyday routine into an addition sentence (ex. You put one plate on the table and we have 3 more plates to set.  How many plates do we have altogether?).  Children become more comfortable with asking questions and excited about learning if the adults in their life model it for them.

Up Beat Learning

The Up Beat! preschool music program is in full swing!  So far we have had two energizing sessions with 20 children taking part in at least one of the sessions.  To prepare for my preschool lessons, I have been reading into Edwin Gordon's Music Learning Theory (read about it here).  In particular, I am using many ideas from Gordon's early childhood music curriculum: Music Play.

Aside from moving, chanting and singing in several different meters and modes, I have also incorporated at least one song-based picture book into the lesson. I try to model ways that the parents can do the same at home.

The first week we read The Ants Go Marching by illustrator Jeffrey Scherer.  Musically, this was a great book to work on steady beat and singing a song that is in minor and 6/8 meter.  Better still is the fact that we were able to pause to cumulatively count from 1 to 10 on each page.  The children not only practiced counting, but also made connections between the name of the number and what the number looks like in print, as well as one-to-one correspondence in the pictures.  After doing things like this at home with my son, he is now almost able to count to 10 on his own and is even recognizing numbers in print at only 20 months old!

The first book we read this week was Winter Wonderland by illustrator Jacqueline Rogers.  I had intended on using this song the week prior, but we had to cancel our session due to our own winter wonderland!  I loved pausing during the song to make connections to things like weather.  The children shared things they see during the winter time and we talked about what they like to do in the snow.

The second book we sang this week was If You're Happy and You Know It by illustrator Jane Cabrera.  I love this book because the kids already know the song and can interact with movements and sounds that are described in the lyrics.  It's a great way to help the kids recognize patterns (i.e. clapping 2 times after I sing "clap your hands").  At the end of the book is a picture of all of the animals from the previous pages.  We took some time to discuss the characters in the book by naming the types of animals.  Next week we will use this song and sing it with feelings.  The children will share different types of feelings and things that you do when you feel that way (i.e. happy = smile, sad = cry, sleepy = yawn, etc...).

For those of you interested in song-based pictures books, Jane Cabrera has a collection of really great ones!  The other two books I mentioned are from Scholastic's Sing and Read Storybooks.  Again, there are a lot of really great song-based picture books from Scholastic.  Some even come with sing-a-long CDs.