Journal #12

I think that this Children's Literature Project was a really good idea although, I wish that we would have had a little bit more time... Sometimes I felt like people were a little rushed to get everything they wanted done. I really enjoyed working with me group. I think that we each had great ideas and all tried to contribute as much as we could to the group. However, I believe that the groups were a little bit to big to have everyone equally present the lesson. My group chose to do the Grouchy Ladybug because we saw the number of different animals present in the book and therefore believed that it would be great to get all the kids involved. We then tried to think about the different concepts and skills that we could teach the children and I think that we had many wonderful ideas. We decided that as a music concept we would teach dynamics because that went side by side with the different sizes of the animals and which would present louder or softer noises. For a non music concept we wanted to teach the children about respect and friendship because during 2ND grade is a very crucial period for them to start making impressions of other people and we really wanted the children to start understanding the concept of "Treat everyone how you would like to be treated." When looking at the skills we wanted the children to understand how to play the different instruments and understanding which animals they belonged to as well as being able to identify the different animals. We tried to make this story and lesson as interesting as possible and that was when we found a little clock in the story that was on each page. We decided that we could incorporate this into the lesson by reviewing time in the beginning and having a giant clock that as the story was being read students could come up and change the clock to the time that was being talked about. I think that one of our biggest challenges were really just choosing just one thing to teach the kids about because there was just so much that we could teach from this book. Another challenge that we had was trying to make sure that everyone had an equal part in the lesson plan. That was why when I was making the lesson plan I tried to split it up for everyone to have something to do even having two people read the story, another person assigning instruments, etc. Like I said before I think that we worked really well as a group because we all wanted to succeed and each had good ideas to contribute to the group. For me I think the most exciting part is going to be when we actually present the lesson plan just to see how the students related to it. We have yet to present the lesson plan so I just hope that it will go really great and people will like the ideas that we have. However, I also hope that we will get feed back on how to improve our lesson plan. Nevertheless, I think that students really benefit from these types of experiences by being able to just get creative with many different things that can bring a story to life for the kids. Many children learn when they actually work with their hands and I think that even though this music is not a necessity, it really helps to connect it to those students. Students like to have fun and if we as teachers provide them with that comfortable environment then hopefully we will see that creativity come to life.

Journal #11

We have mainly been focusing on a creativity this past week in preparation for our children's literature project. There are many different things that can be done with music when reading a book. It has been said that many children learn better and remember information better when that information is associated with music just because they are able to connect with the music that they are listening to. I think a very positive aspect that we focused on this week was that there really is no right and wrong for children when they are trying to incorporate music. We were given many different examples of how to do this. For one story we read about Chicken Little we decided what words and expressions would be good to enunciate and focus on by adding music. The teacher also showed us how to take it to another level by adding a melody into the song. It really had nothing to do with the story but it gave us a simple way to add music to the story just to make it more interesting. However for another story about Thunder Cake we were given the expressions that the teacher wanted us to look it but we were allowed to create our own sounds... It was really interesting because we looked at another factor and that was recycling and the environment. Children can really benefit from this because it allows the children to express themselves in a way that like and they know can show the real person that they are. Allowing students to be creative gives them the chance to feel like they are in a safe environment. I also think that we as students are benefiting as future teachers when we are given the chance to read the book to the class because it is allows us the chance to work on our creativity by expressing ourselves as we read the story. We learn how to change our voices and make it much more interesting to the class. Earlier this week, we learned a new concept and that is called Binary Form. This means 2 and it usually focuses on the pattern of AB. A is known as the chorus or refrain and that is usually what we remember most in a song because we hear it so often. The B is known as the verse and that is the melody, what changes in a song. An example of this was when we listened to the song and incorporated the hand jive into it. We performed the Hand Jive during the chorus of the song so we were able to remember it more so. Another example would be the story/song, Chicken Little because every time you introduce another character we repeat the song, "It hit me on the head." The songs however, Rock-a-bye baby, and the Itsy Bitsy Spider to not demonstrate this Binary concept because they do not have any part that repeats, they ave no chorus. I am excited to see how people incorporate music into their literature book because I think that there are so many lessons that can be learned from these stories as we saw with Thunder Cake, it looked at math, social skills, science, etc. It should be really great.

Reflection #10

This week we really focussed on creativity and how to get students more involved with in it. We read stories and played music to begin to understand how our students are going to be thinking and looking at things. Some of the different concepts we learned this week through the process were a certain form known as binary, which includes an "A" and "B", the verse and chorus. Another concept is timbre which is, tone quality, letting us know that everyone has a different sound to their voice. I think that this is important because as teachers we are going to need to realize that each of our students are going to have different qualities in both voice and other things and we need to understand how to bring about those qualities.
Part of what we did this week was story telling. One of the first stories that we read was about the three piglets. I don't exactly agree with the way this story was taught because the first time a single person read the story which was fine because the teacher said she would chose different people to read stories at different times. However, the next time we went through the story she assigned sounds in the story to people in the classroom. I feel though that if that is the case then you need to make sure that every student in the class is involved at a time because once you have students who feel that they are not needed in the group you will lose their attention and that is something hard to get back. Another story that we went through was about a girl who went on a listening walk and made sure to just listen to the sounds as she passed by and really look at the world. I think this was a fun story to learn about creativity with children because it had so many different options of sounds that children could learn to play with. One of the things that I believe is important to make sure that children understand about creativity is that there are no limits. Each child has different opinions and visions on things. There fore although to the "normal" world a pig may make a distinct voice different children may have different adaptations which is okay.
This to me is where student-centered learning comes into play. Children deserve to have all the freedom in the world to express themselves. Although children do need limitations and boundaries to clearly understand right and wrong at times it is a great thing when they chose to show their emotions. Creativity is one of the greatest gifts you can give a child and it has to be developed to the extreme how that child choses to because creativity is something that will always let them enjoy the world. I believe that student centered learning was greatly enhanced in this activity because children were given a specific sound they had to make however, they were able to use their voices and body parts however they needed to make the sound as real as they wanted it to be. Another way that it was enhanced was by having the different music instruments and allowing children to chose which one they felt best suited the sound intended. This allowed the students to best express themselves and it lets them feel like its okay to chose something that other people may not see as typical because they understand that other peers in their group may also chose something not typical as long as it is real to themselves.

Journal #8

This past week in class we mainly talked about the final project for this class as well as dealing a lot with creativity. I think that this music project although incorporates a great deal of information is a way to increase our ability to be creative. This is because we have to chose a culture to talk about, the exciting part is that it doesn't have to be a culture that you relate to just one that you are interested in. We also completed an assignment on the use of musical instruments to help student's creativity.
I think that it is very important for students to be creative because that is something that will greatly help them in every aspect of their life and in any career that they chose. For example if they want to become teachers then they need to understand that sometimes a lesson might not go as planned or that a child is not understanding the material in the way that it is being presented and therefore they have to use their creativity to work with the challenges they are given. Or for instance if they want to become a doctor they might be faced with a power outage in the middle of surgery and need to be creative to keep their patient alive.
Creativity is something that increases the brains capacity to be able to understand information. It also helps students create connections between what they are learning in school to their real lives so that they can better retain that information. We learned in chapter 5, the different ways that instruments can be used to increase the student's creativity. Through instruments such as the piano, guitar, claves, melody bells, etc. students can learn about pitch, melody and harmonies. I believe that it is extremely important for students to expand their creativity as early as possible because they will be able to better express themselves later on in life and realize the person that they really are.
As for my cultural project I have decided to study the Israeli Culture. I feel that it is close to my heart because my entire family is Jewish and many of them come from Israel. I hope to learn a lot about the culture and customs to better understand where I cam from.

Journal #7

Studying for tests for me vary depending on the class that it is. I honestly thought that for me I would have to prepare a little bit less for music because I have such a musical background and understand things such as the different note names and values and the definitions of different terms such as melody and steady beat. However, this past year I have learned to review for tests by actually completing the study guide. For me I can understand it much more if I actually take the time to make notes about each concept as well as writing down what I don't understand and then looking back at those terms. Like I said, it was really easy for me to understand, note names, times signature, note values, and definitions because being a piano player that comes naturally to me. However, I felt that it wasn't necessary to put such an abundance of information on the study guide because taking a look at the children's vocal ability and characteristics, and their song interests for example their is such a wide range to know of that and we had no idea what would be on the test and it turned out to be only one question and I know that for a lot people that was something that they spent a long time learning when they could have been putting their time into something that was emphasized much more on the test. It was also difficult for me to remember the half step, whole step sequence because since I can remember every music teacher I have ever had has explained to me that a white key to a white key is a whole step even if there is no black key in the middle so I had to relearn that. Although, I understand what staccato and legato is I think it was completely wrong to suddenly add that to the test on the day that we were reviewing for the test not learning new information. I think that a lot of the test was confusing, for instance no one remembers at all when during this class we learned the notes that correspond with solfegee.
Some of the things that we have learned during the semester were the definitions of steady beat, the constant repetition of one sound, rhythmic pattern, the combination of long, short, and silent sounds, melody, combination of various pitches. We also learned about a C major scale as well as G major. We learned that in order to be considered C major, the notes have to go from C to C and that in a G major to follow the sequence of WWHWWWH there has to be an F#. We learned about the way the way a lesson plan should be written in this class and that some of the important factors it should incorporate are concepts and skills both musical and non musical, objectives, closure and assessment. In talking about lesson plans, we also talked about a man named Kodaly who believed that every child should be musically educated. He felt that in order to teach a child music you need hand signs such as Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. He also came up with rhythmic duration patterns to refer to the different notes such as quarter, half, eighth, whole, and sixteenth. He referred to them as Ta, Ti-Ti, Ta-ah, Ti-Ri-Ti-Ri, and Ta-ah-ah-ah. Speaking of the different notes, we learned about their values, for instance, quarter note is 1 beat, half note is 2 beats, whole note is 4 and the eighth note is 1/2 beat. We also learned the corresponding rests. On Fridays we began playing the recorder and in doing this so far we know the G, A, B, C, and D notes and their fingering charts. One of the last things that we have learned so far is how to transfer a song into both a rhythmic notation and a melodic icon.
Although this is not everything that we have learned it is a very big majority and the basis of what most information stems off of. I hope that as the semester progresses and the information gets harder we will be better prepared both before and during the test.

Journal #6

This week was set aside for our lesson plan presentations. I was very nervous about this lesson plan because there were so many aspects to look at. I didn't really know if I was going to be able to incorporate music into teaching a concept the correct way but all I could really do was give it a shot and just try because thats all anyone can really ask for. It is always difficult to evaluate yourself but I think because I was able to talk to Linda and have her point out my strengths and something I could have worked on makes this a lot easier to do.
Now I am going to look at the yellow sheet and do a self evaluation:
The song that I used was "Going on a Picnic." When looking at musicianship I do believe that I got 5/5. Musicianship looks at being in tune, having correct pitch, accurate rythem, appropriate tempo, correct enunciation, and good facial expression. I think that I was able to use my head voice so that the students were better able to match my voice, and I also think that it was appropriate of me to admit when I made a mistake on the piano and instead of ignoring it go back and redo it so that the students are learning the correct way.
For leadership I would have given myself either an 8/10 or 9/10. This looks at body language, facial expression, voice tone and volume, eye contact, and intensity (energy). I feel that I was able to really get the students excited about this lesson. I really loved when the students were participating and really congratulated each on the feed back that they gave me. I would however take a point or two off for standing to much behind the piano. I didn't really pay attention to this until Linda pointed it out and I am thankful that she did. When teaching the students the dance and having them do it piece by piece I was standing out with them and doing it yet when it was time for them to do the whole thing, I stayed behind the piano to keep them on tune versus standing in the circle and performing with them.
For preparation which looks at knowledge of music and plan, having a written plan, and recordings ready I think that I deserve a 15/15. Although I didn't have instruments for the students to play or chart for them to look at I think that was for the better because I gave them a lot of movement to keep them from getting bored but also the balance of not having them distracted. I had my lesson plan and music ready to go and I think that I was able to adapt the lesson plan as well if the students needed a little extra work on something or if they were really excelling at a certain point.
Last but not least when looking at the delivery of instruction which really encompasses the essence of the lesson plan I would have given myself probably an 18/20 or 19/20. I feel like I said before that I was truly able to capture the students attention and keep them interested through out. I was able to get them involved both by asking them questions and looking for their feedback of words that we could incorporate into the song. I feel that the lesson plan had a great flow to it in terms of being able to teach the students the music concepts, to the question answer, to the movements that were incorporated. I think that the closure was also really beneficial because it helped bring everything back together for the students. I feel that overall my final grade that I deserved was an A because I really was able to keep everyone interested and help get all the concepts across.
When looking at the things that I found most difficult as well as things that I think I did not do very well for me go together hand in hand. I think that standing behind the piano or in my case staying behind it for to long was very hard. I have been a piano player since I was 5 years old so its only natural for me to feel most comfortable with in that area. I am really glad however, that that was pointed out to me because I believe that I would have overlooked that otherwise.
For me, the things that I thought went really well were really making this language arts concept work. It was a little abstract but I really felt that it was necessary for students to understand the 5W's because they will need that for the rest of their lives. I also feel that I was really able to grab hold of the student's attention right away and keep them focussed through out the lesson because of the different ideas that were incorporated, especially the movement because it just helped them getting moving around.
If I was given a second chance which I semi was at the end of my lesson, I believe that I would change how often I stood behind the piano to make sure that the students could really match my voice and energy as well as making the environment more comfortable with me standing out there with the students. As hard as it is to say this because no matter what we always be nervous performing something in front of a group of people especially if those people are our students because more than anything we want to make sure to both grab their attention and keep it through out.

Journal #5

The majority of class this week was based on bettering our lesson plans however, I am not sure that was the case. Although we did receive feedback from the teacher on our lesson plan I don't know if that was exactly the feedback that was needed. A lot of it although seen as correct in the teachers eyes as well as the students may not be correct to other people. I always thought as a lesson plan as something that could prepare you for what and how you were going to teach your classroom. I think that a lesson plan can be very different when dealing with different people and I feel as though we are not truly able to express that in this class. I have come to understand that the teacher wants the lesson plan a certain way and that is okay because in order to be a successful teacher you need to be able to differentiate but I feel as though much of the feedback was very negative this week and truly put the students under a great deal of pressure that could have been avoided. One of the concepts however, that we did learn this week or started to was the sharp on the recorder.
Like I said earlier I feel that students were called out this week that shouldn't have been. I truly do not think that numbering the lesson plans was a good idea because whether or not it was meant to come off that way it really made students feel bad because you are saying that if they did not receive a 1 their lesson plan was not good and that there are students that not necessarily can teach them better but our much better then them. I am not saying this because i received a 2 and am jealous of the people that received a 1 because I know that I benefited from their help but I do not believe that I should have been put down like that because the whole point of this class is to learn how to become better and a more rounded teacher. I also do not think that it is fair at all to be giving 5 extra credit points to someone who as a "good in tune singer." This class is not about that at all and that is what we were told our first day. There are many students in this class who do not believe that they have a good voice or have never really been exposed to singing in the first place and by telling people basically that if they do not get the extra credit they are bad singers really is just putting down students self confidence. I do think that it was a good idea to put us together with students not in the way that it was done but it gave us a chance to see how other students did theirs and to receive feedback from them. Like I said we only briefly started to cover the sharp, I think that it helped drawing out the keyboard, but I believe that many students are still confused by this so we need to spend a little more time on that to make sure that everyone is on the same page.
I think that it is important for us to be able to understand how to put these different lesson plans together because with out that we will not truly be a differentiated teacher and realize that sometimes we need to change things for the way certain students learn. I hope that we work more on getting the techniques that we need to really be able to be confident in our lesson plans because I feel like we were just thrown into it this week with really not a great deal of guidance or positive feed back. In terms of the sharp it is important for us to understand that so that we could progress into different and more challenging songs.
I feel that in terms of the sharp it is important for kids to understand this because it will further their knowledge in music. I also feel that the lesson plan although not important directly to the students will make us better prepared to teach them and benefit them in the long run.