Friday, September 05, 2008

And the Beat Goes On

We started studying music today. All teachers have particular areas of interest and expertise, and music is one of mine. Over the last few years, I have been fortunate enough to participate in quite a number of music education programs. I was particularly lucky to have had the opportunity to study the Orff-Schulwerk method of teaching music, and I have received my Level I and Level II certification in this methodology. Orff is a wonderful program where students have so much fun they often are unaware of how much they are learning! The American Orff-Schulwerk Association's website has a good, succinct description of the Orff program and process. I also include some elements of the Dalcroze and Kodaly approaches, though I have never had the opportunity to study those techniques formally.

Today's lesson was simple. Students learned to find and express the beat in different ways. First, they found the beat in their own bodies by jogging in place and checking their pulse. One student volunteered to clap his pulse and the rest of the class joined the beat. We then practiced making "space bubbles" and learned how to move our arms as if they were pendulums. We listened to two short piano selections and moved our "pendulums" to the beat. We then moved into a large circle, and students practiced listening for stressed beats and making a big movement on each of the stressed beat. I improvised a little piece on the keyboard to accompany this exercise. We did this a second time passing around a large hand drum, hitting the drum on the downbeat. We concluded by journaling about this lesson.

Homework: There really is no homework per se today, but a few students have a few unfinished assignments from our classwork. These might include pages 13-15 in the Math book, a history study sheet, and some worksheets on vocabulary from the first Open Court Reading story.

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