Played a new game in Enrichment class..

A new game is always a way to inspire students and make them really use their imagination.  The game I found from David Farmer's website!  Check it out!

The game is called Alphabet shapes.  Students are walking around the room, and you call out a letter.  They have five seconds to create a thing or an idea that begins with the letter you have called out to them.  After the five seconds is up, you must ask each student to tell you what they made.  We had some wonderful ideas from these students!  Here is what we found!

The letter was K!  They had kangaroo, and knight, but one student had kale!!

The letter was B!  There were bears, and bumble bees but also the BEACH!! (A boy lay on his side and waved his hands around as the beach.)

When there are two students left, you can then have the other students vote on the most creative idea!
This was so much fun, and I laughed until I cried!

Did they learn anything?  Or was it just good, clean fun?  I believe that they did.  They learned about vocabulary, which one student mentioned.  They learned how to think on their feet, with only five seconds to think up a shape from their bodies.  They learned how to use their bodies in different ways, and they learned how to be creative and think of something that someone else might not have thought of..because you are out if two people do the SAME THING!!

That is my grave, intense and inspiring thought for the day!  Try to think of something that no one else ever might have thought of, and you might become rich and famous! (Or not, but at least you will have fun and keep your brain malleable and new while you are working on it!! ) Have a great week!

Student Initiative

I am very impressed by how students can sometimes take initiative to start a new experience for themselves in school.  There were some boys who thought up a new enrichment class at our school a few weeks ago.  They found some dance videos on youtube, and wanted to find a teacher to help them, or dance with them to these videos.  They went around to all the enrichment teachers in our school and asked for their help.  There were certain days they needed, and when they came to several of us, we had to say "no" as we already teach an enrichment class during those times.  However, in the end, they found teachers to help them with their endeavor.

Here is where it gets interesting.  On the first day of what they believed should be their new enrichment, they had the teacher find a room, and take them all there.  The fascinating part is, neither the teacher of the enrichment, nor the administrator seemed to understand how important it might be for them to know how it was that the students were actually "free" and "available" to be in this new enrichment class.  The fact of the matter was that they are NOT "free" or "available" at that time for this enrichment.  They are supposed to be in other enrichment classes.

 In fact, several of them have been in MY enrichment class for the past few weeks, and I thought I was doing some interesting activities with them, building on skills that we would use later in the quarter to do some acting and development of characters.  The students never came to me to say they wished to leave my enrichment.  The teachers never came to me to mention or ask about these students switching enrichments in the middle of the quarter.  These students just DIDN'T SHOW UP FOR MY CLASS!!  What are we trying to teach these students?  I am responsible for them, so why is this ok?  Students in my class went down to try to find them, and they told them they didn't have to come back to my class..again, what are we teaching these students??  And what is enrichment??

Finally, I have to say, that I still appreciate their efforts and their initiative, but it is essential that students are taught the correct way to go about starting something new in a school.  And can I just say that COMMUNICATION  to all the important parties is probably more important than ANYTHING ELSE THAT ANYONE CAN THINK ABOUT DOING.  I hope this can be a teachable moment for all involved, and I hope we can come away with a better feeling about it all in the end.  Have a great week everyone, and enjoy all the enrichments, tlts, advisories, extra curricular activities, and all the commitments that you have made this year!!

New Lyrics to Down By the Riverside

Gonna make everyone happy
Down in the city 3x
No one is sad no more 8x

Gonna make everyone feel the joy
Gonna jump up and down in the joy

Gonna pick up the trash today

and throw it all away 3x

Gonna pick up the trash today

and throw it all away

And take out the recyclables 8x

Gonna help hurt animals 3x

and give them medicine

Gonna help hurt animals

and give them medicine

And take out recyclables 8x

Gonna donate my money to charity

So the homeless will get food 3x

Gonna donate my money to charity

So the homeless will get food

And take out the recyclables 8x

   Make the world better

     

Gotta help those kids who are on the road

Gotta get them on their feet

Gonna show them way *2  

Gonna love today  tomorrow and maybe the next. Give them the perfect home with the hope and care.*2

Gonna open the door to trust to show them the care ,the hope, the love.Gonna show them the love that they need to groooooow and I will be the sun that lights the waaaaaay.

What is happening in fifth Grade Music

This week and last week in fifth grade music we began to delve into composition, day one!  You might think fifth graders might not be prepared to compose anything if they haven't had a great deal of experience with music, however, that is not the case.  We are composing rhythm compositions, not melodic compositions.  Melody will come later, rhythm can come first.  It is complicated enough.  We begin by practicing how a quarter note will be counted, then a half note, and a dotted half and a whole note.  We practice a quarter rest, a half rest and a whole rest.  We discuss what all these are worth, and we also count double eighth notes.

From there, we create a sixteen measure composition together as a class.  Sixteen measures of rhythm, combining all the different types of notes that we know, in four/four time.  All of the students will contribute their ideas to this first composition, and then we will learn how to play it.  We practice it together and perform it together a few times.

After this, students go off on their own, and I am by them to help them when and if they need it, and they create their own sixteen measure composition, all on their own.  When they are completed with it, they check it with me, and I can fix whatever is not quite right.  After the first check in, they then practice the piece by themselves until they think they are ready.  It is funny, because students always believe they are ready after practicing a piece two or three times.  They come to me, and do not keep a steady tempo, or they clap the eighth notes the same way they are clapping the quarter notes, so I send them back with feedback on how to count better.

The final day of the week they perform their pieces for me and the class, and it is heartwarming to see and to hear.  They have come a long way in a few days with their compositions, and some of them have also learned each other's compositions, and have learned even how to play their compositions together as a duo, two separate pieces in rhythm, in time.  For me, a wonderful way to get to know the students quickly, and a wonderful way to get them to play music for each other right away!  I look forward to more performances tomorrow and Friday!  Have a great week!.

Goodbye to sixth grade Hello to fifth grade

This is always a bittersweet time for me.  I have been teaching the 6th graders for over a year, ever since last winter at this time.  At that time, they were only lowly fifth graders, the youngest students in this school.  They have grown dramatically and exponentially over the last year.  They have learned to play the piano with two hands.  They have written amazing and detailed and fascinating opera plots.  They have composed songs with both hands, and played them.  They have composed many rhythm pieces and performed many of them for the class.

Some of them have had me for three periods a day, because of tlt and enrichment classes as well as music class.  So some of them have learned many drama activities and many poems.  Some of them have practiced some plays or scenes as well with me.  I have been trying very hard to teach them so many things, but even if I were not trying that hard, they would be absorbing things without my help.  They are amazing students and I have been fortunate to have them in my class.  I will miss them, and I will miss their great minds.  I hope they visit me, and I hope that they continue to thrive for the rest of the year and BEYOND!  I APPRECIATE THE OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE WORKED WITH ALL OF THESE STUDENTS FOR THE LAST YEAR!  COME BACK AND VISIT SOMETIME.

A very fun drama game that I have not shared before ...

This drama game is called "Why are you Late?"  There are a group of "workers" who create a reason why the other worker is late.  The worker and the boss leave the room while the group decides what that reason is.  It can be obvious, or outlandish and creative and magical realistic.  When the worker and the boss return to the room, the worker faces the boss, and the boss stands with his/her back to the workers.  The worker has to guess by watching the motions and pantomime of the other workers what the reason is that he or she is late.  If the boss catches the workers doing anything other than "typing" then that worker is out.  The game ends when the worker figures out why he or she was late, or when the boss gets all the workers out.

I love this game because it takes focus for the boss to go back and forth and catch the workers at their movements.  It takes creativity to figure out what the worker's reason will be for being late.  It takes an ability to act out what happened for the workers, and it takes being able to think on the spot for the worker to figure it all out!  It has become one of the favorites of the drama class, and I think it could be one of my favorites to play with my students, because they enjoy it so much and they use their creative juices so readily.

One of the reasons a worker was late was that he was gored by a unicorn and had to go to the hospital.  Another was that the pet bird came into the room in the middle of the night and chewed through the cord of the alarm clock so it didn't go off.  You have to make it realistic enough, but also it can be completely imaginary, and it still works well.  Hope you try this and enjoy the game!

Finding an old friend/colleague

Happy New Year everyone!  I was thinking about my former life in Boston, Massachusetts, and I remembered a time when I was not working full time, and my children were only 9, 7, 5, and 2 1/2.  I was trying to sing as much as I could, but it wasn't always easy to get out of the house to do that.  My children went to a wonderful private school at the time, the Park School in Brookline, Massachusetts, and I had met one of the other mothers of children there, who is a jazz pianist.  She had studied at Berklee College of Music and is an incredibly talented and wonderful musician.  Her name is Cathryn, and together we collaborated on a jazz recital to benefit the school and their scholarship program.

I had not thought about her for some time, although I had written her a letter many years back which was returned, so I had given up ever finding her again.  But I just decided to check on Facebook of all places to see if she might turn up there.  Well, there she was, playing her jazz piano, making cds and playing with another person.  I sent her a message on her page, and she sent me a message back!! I was totally amazed!  It has been twenty-five years since I have talked to her, but she remembered me well, and she said it was because of that recital that we did that she began playing all the time again and she hasn't stopped since!  I can't wait to find out more, and I will keep you posted!  What a delightful surprise for the new year, I will leave her interesting music and her projects with children that she has been working on since last I knew her! Enjoy!

Sound Art

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