The Deathly Hollows, Pitch Perfect, and The Hunger Games. Oh, and Kindergartners.

This is a broken trumpet painted by two fifth grade gals. Now they want to play trumpet, isn't that interesting? Maybe that's a new recruitment technique. Break all your instruments, let kids paint them, then buy all new instruments so they can join band.

This post is going to be a smathering of topics, I've lost the ability to organize in my head.

DISCOVERIES

#1 If I hold these cards up to Kindergarten, First, and Second Graders they will immediately learn to audiate (hear music in their head) better than if I tried to use words to explain it. Monster #1 Means: SING INSIDE YOUR HEAD. Monster #2 Means: SING OUT LOUD. 

So we sang a song we all knew, "Boom De Adda" You know, 

I love the flowers, I love the daffodils

I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills

I love the fireside, when the lights are low,

boom de adda, boom de adda, boom de ah...

BUT! It became a game. I'd start holding Monster-Mouth-Open and we'd sing the song, and then I'd switch quickly to Monster-Mouth-Closed. When I stressed that the song had to keep going inside your head my students learned to audiate. And what a fabulous job they did. Discovery #1.

#2 A variety of things have been going on in my choirs, (1st/2nd grade, 3rd/4th grade, 5th-8th optional.) Firstly I've had a lot of fun changing the orientation and configuration of the chairs. Sometimes students will come in and the chairs will be facing a wall they've never faced before. Or they'll be in a circle. Or they'll be in rows. Or they'll be in a few rows, and a semi-circle, or columns. I don't know, I just like to freak them out a little bit. They talk less that way. And let's be honest, I'm not using the piano so why orient them towards it?

     Secondly after that amazing first day of middle school chorus when 25 kids showed up my numbers have been fluctuating, sometimes I'll have 14, sometimes I'll have 20. Last Thursday I had 25 again. I decided it all depends on how funny I am in their general music classes that are all scheduled before chorus on the same day. Interesting. 

     And lastly I have introduced the... JIBBERISH BALL. A squishy pool ball that fills up with water and splats against someone's face. Except in music class its function is to steal away the holder's ability to speak in real words. So I will be speaking to my class and telling them how wonderful they are when suddenly I pick up the ball and dwee ap ta te beedo beedo beedo wop wop wop etc. At first, each group was shocked. Ms. Kauffeld has actually gone insane. And then they realized that they were going to get to have a turn and we had a collective-near-meltdown from excitement.

     It goes like this, when you have the ball, you speak at your neighbor, pass it to them, they respond to you, then turn to the next person. And, very importantly, ONLY the person with the ball may be making noise. (Some classes struggled with this. Once you've crossed into the world of Jibberish it's nearly impossible to sit quietly.) What I found most exciting about this activity is that some of my students who had said only four words total since I've met them would suddenly have A LOT to say in jibberish. This will move us towards talking about Improvising and Music as a way to Communicate. 

Sometimes I scare myself.

#3 I've started thinking about the play that I need to create for/with the Kindergarten-4th graders at Folsom and the pre-K-6th graders at Isle LaMotte. At Folsom there is a paper hanging in my room with a pencil on a string that's labeled, "IDEAS FOR OUR PLAY." This idea backfired. "The Hunger Games" is written 5 times, each one if followed by about 34 check marks as if to say, "I agree." Other suggestions were, "Pitch Perfect," "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (as the audience would clearly just fill in the rest of the story,) "Minecraft," ("It's a game. And it's violent, but there's like, no blood," the student justified to me after writing it.) That being said... I think I'm going to have to act as Teacher-As-Authoritarian and choose the story that we'll adapt without giving much consideration to their suggestions. But, 5 year olds just shouldn't be retelling the story of college a capella groups or cubes that attack each other. (My understanding of Minecraft is flawed, I know this.)

I've started to spend a little time here and there introducing some acting exercises in various classes, because they do help students to become more Artful, one of my three main goals.

     In one particular game I begin with a magic blob of goop that I sculpt into an object, use the object, and pass it to my neighbor who smooshes it up and re-sculpts it. The activity went swimmingly in the middle school. And then I played it with the first and second graders and we couldn't guess a single one of the objects made within the class. My favorite object sculpted by them? "It's a little skeleton hanging from a string!" Well, sure it is.  Second favorite? "It's my name! I can't believe you didn't get that!" 

#4 Here's some other stuff:

     -I went to a farm on an all-school field trip. My most productive endeavor was chasing an 

      escaping-preschooler through a pumpkin patch.

     -I'm bad at yoga.

     -I attended my first inservice that's during the school year which I deem makes it more real. 

      I probably shouldn't write about how it went in a public space.

     -We listened to The Token's version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and then a South African version in 3rd and 4th grade. They extracted evidence and made an argument about which one they believed to be from South Africa. (This was all to satisfy the requirements of my assignment for Inservice for our Common Core work.) It ended up being quite successful and fun. Methinks. 

That's all I can muster...

Now the students are taking the NECAPs. And that's the worst, no denying it.

So, cheers to all of us NOT taking the NECAPs!

-Karlie