Lesson Planning
Components of an elementary music curriculum or planbook:
- Single lessons
- “Units” or sequences of lessons
- Expected outcomes for the year (by age group or grade)
- Repertoire (performance, listening)
- Resources (available space, materials, time)
- Standards (The Blueprint)
- Assessments (rubrics, assessment formats)
In New York City schools, the first four components are typically determined by the teacher, working alone or with a mentor. Resources depend to a great extent on the physical plant, the budget, and above all on the awareness and commitment of the principal; these can vary widely from one school to another. The standards in place for music teachers in the Department of Education are represented by the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the Blueprint reflects an ideal. The Benchmarks it proposes are a practical guide only if the administration in a particular school can ensure continuity of resources from one school year to the next. In other words: the Blueprint and its benchmarks function at the mercy of decisions about scheduling, staffing, and classroom space (if any).
Another factor that complicates effective teaching and learning in city schools is the rate of “student mobility” (admissions and discharges during the school year) and “stability” (student longevity in the school). For obvious reasons, lesson planning for a highly unstable community requires a certain amount of flexibility.
Skilled planning for teaching elementary-grades music is similar to planning for math or emergent literacy: it involves an on-going sequential process that keeps children continually moving from the known to the unknown.
You can see excellent examples of how this process might unfold in practice by looking at one of the Kodály methodology introductions, in particular Lois Choksy’s The Kodály Method I and II (3rd edition, Prentice-Hall, 1999). Whether the Kodály approach is best-suited for conditions in NYC’s public schools may be debated. Basically, a Kodály program continually prepares children for explicit learning about each melodic or rhythmic concept with lots of experience in singing and playing musical games, so that the new concept has already been internalized, when it is presented. As a result, each lesson in a grade sequence has to include repertoire that can provide that preparation, as well as lots of opportunities for practice, in reading, writing and performing.
General Music Curriculum Framework Document
an interesting guide to planning by Prof. Debra Hadden, University of Kansas (MENC)
Into Music 4 is the music curriculum in the New Zealand Schools. A lot of interesting material can be found and downloaded from their website. Be prepared to explore and be prepared to “translate” into American terms.
Draw Me a Bucket of Water (Frog in a Bucket)
Here’s a nice little video on School Tube with students at a Knoxville, TN school demonstrating the game from Bessie Jones’ classic collection Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs, and Stories from the Afro-American Heritage.
I never saw it end with that counted-down “dismount.” Usually the dancers turn one direction in a “bunch” and then loosen up and hold hands in a open circle of four so they can really fly around in the opposite direction (and maybe fall on the floor).
Draw Me a Bucket of Water (Georgia Sea Islands singing game)
Draw Me a Bucket of Water
Draw me a bucket of water
For my lady’s daughter
We got none [one, two, three, four] in the bunch
We’re all [three, two, one] out the bunch
You go under, sister Sally.
Frog in the bucket and I can’t get him out
Frog in the bucket and I can’t get him out
Frog in the bucket and I can’t get him out.
Frog in the bucket and I can’t get him out.
- Another site, KidMid, includes some instructions with solfege and rhythm notation. (more…)
Nursery Rhymes with graphics for classroom use
From one of Amy M. Burns’s music ed blogs, here’s a link to a set of Mother Goose rhymes:
Hey Diddle-Diddle; Dance to Your Daddy; Baa Baa Black Sheep; Hickory Dickory Dock; This Little Piggy; Jack Be Nimble; Jack & Jill; There Was a Crooked Man; Little Jack Horner; Three Blind Mice; Twinkle Twinkle; Humpty Dumpty; Little Bo-Peep; I Had a Little Nut Tree; Little Miss Muffet; Pussy-cat, Pussy-cat; Old King Cole; Two Little Dicky-birds
for each rhyme you can download a printable illustrated poster; a set of printable cards for sequencing activities; and (for teachers who use an interactive whiteboard) a six-page Smart Notebook file with characters, scenes, sequencing activities and suggestions for activities in class. The cards and posters are Microsoft Word files.
The illustrations are well-done, and posters and cards could be printed as take-home activities for students.
Teaching Music Without a Music Room
Teaching music in the same classrooms where your students work each day with their own teachers is a challenge met by many city teachers in buildings too crowded to allow a separate music classroom. One approach is to load teaching materials and instruments on a rolling cart that serves as a base of operations.
Seven Atlanta-area music teachers contributed to Music à la Cart , a 71-page paperback guide to set-up, management, and delivery of your cart-based music lessons in schools where there is no music classroom.
In addition, Karen Stafford’s “Music Education Madness” website has a page full of ideas and suggestions for people who work this way.
Yo Quiero
Yo Quiero music and lyrics by Leonardo Croatto
Yo quiero que a mi me quieran, yo quiero tener un nombre
Yo quiero que a mi me cuiden si me enfermo o estoy triste
Porque yo quiero crecer.
(I want everyone to love me; I want to have a name. I want to be taken care of, if I´m sick or if I´m sad, because I want to grow.)
Yo quiero saberlo todo, yo quiero que a mi me enseñen
Mi familia y mi maestra, a contar y a hacer las letras, y me quiero divertir!
(I want to know everything; I want them to teach me, my family and my teacher, to count and to spell, and I want to have fun!)
A jugar, a cantar, que me enseñen a ser libre y me digan la verdad.
A jugar, a cantar, que me escuchen cuando hablo y que no me hagan llorar.
(To play, to sing… let them teach me to be free, and tell me the truth. To play, to sing… let them listen when I talk, and not make me cry.)
Pero quiero que también todos los niños del mundo
tengan todo lo que quiero pues lo quiero compartir.
(But I also wish for all the kids of the world to have everything I wish for, ‘cause I also want to share it.)
A jugar, a cantar, que tengan todos los niños en el mundo su lugar
Vamos todos a cantar: pa’ que los niños del mundo tengan todos un lugar.
Vamos todos a ayudar todos los niños del mundo merecemos un lugar.
(To play, to sing… let all the kids in the world have their own place
Let´s all sing… for all the kids in the world to have a place.
Let´s all help all the kids in the world: we all deserve a place.)
(source information here)
Professional Development
Organizations or schools in the NYC area which offer professional development: clinics, workshops, or certification training of relevance to elementary-level music teachers.
Office of Arts and Special Projects (NYC-DOE) sometimes plans day-long clinics during the school year, focusing on the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts.
Music Educators Association of New York City (MEANYC) has short (2-hour) clinics on Saturdays at locations all over NYC.
UFT Music Teachers Committee was dormant for several years, but recently resumed offering a program of full-day Saturday clinics for music teachers, during the year.
Orff and Kodály chapters in NYC sponsor day-long Saturday events in Manhattan, with L.I. Orff workshops at Hofstra University.
Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ, has a full program of music education courses on Saturdays.
New Jersey City University has Orff certification classes in July.
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has a certification for early and middle childhood music teachers. NBPTS certification is a rigorous process through which accomplished teachers earn a distinction after completing a course of assessments and portfolio submission. Information about the Music Educators certification and the NBPTS standards for early and middle childhood music can be downloaded as a PDF file.
Early Childhood Songs and Rhymes
Following are lyrics for many of the traditional standards for teaching music in early childhood:
Many thanks to the compiler, Walter Paul, who teaches music at P.S. 42 in Manhattan. He has provided brief a cappella MP3 files for melodies of any unfamiliar pieces, at http://drop.io/songsandrhymeslevel1
Teacher-directed staff development
Here are some videos from a meeting of elementary school music teachers, organized and hosted by Craig McGorry at P.S. 35 in the Bronx, on November 3, 2009.
16 people attended, some of them from schools as far away as Brooklyn. Participants discussed and shared activities (body percussion, movement to music, xylophone work, singing rounds, rhythm notation games, etc.), including:
- Body Percussion Rondo: “Everyone learned it, then broke into 4 groups. Each group spent about 10 minutes coming up with their own 4-measure ideas. We then regrouped and combined the parts with the A-section from the original rondo. The result is an activity that moves from learning a piece to composing other sections and finally performing them.”
- Body Movement: to identify different sections from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro (presented by Evan Alboum of P.S. 246, Bronx).
- Macro-Beat Awareness: activity presented by Fay Watson of P.S. 75, Manhattan)
- Two African-American handgames —Hambone and Juba (presented by David Haiman of P.S. 180, Manhattan).
- Balafón: Orff arrangement for 2nd graders, from Walt Hampton’s Hot Marimba (presented by David Haiman) .
- Kokoleoko: a Liberian folk song acappella arrangement
- I Won’t Go to Macy’s Anymore: a schoolyard rhyme (presented by Walter Paul of P.S. 42, Manhattan)
- John Kanaka: a Pacific Islands sea shanty with circle play
Watch for updates on the next city-wide PD days: Monday, Feb. 1 and Thursday, June 10, 2010, 8:30 AM – 3:00 PM.
“P” In-Service courses for Music Teachers
The New York City After School Professional Development Program offers a selection of “P” In-Service courses that are designed to equip educators (teachers, secretaries, and other school-based personnel) with the skills and abilities to increase student achievement. Course offerings are high quality, low-cost alternatives to traditionally offered college courses. Available across all content areas, courses may be applied toward salary differential requirements and meet the New York State 175-hour Professional Development requirement. (ASPDP classes do not offer academic credits toward fulfillment of licensing requirements.)
Summer “P” course registration will begin on June 2nd after 4 PM. Mark your calendar for the Fall 2009 registration which begins on August 4th after 4 PM. Fall courses begin meeting on Sept 21st. Visit the ASPDP website to view the catalog of courses. For additional information contact Helaine Schwartz, Director at 718-935-5753 or via e-mail at aspdp@schools.nyc.gov
Past offerings that may be of interest to music teachers included Using the Recorder in the Classroom, Composing with Garage Band, Technology Through Music and Other Arts, and The American Musicals Project – History, & Literature through the Arts.
(Click on the last title to see a description of the course.)
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