Week 15

We only have one week of classes left. We have been really really busy trying to finish up our final projects. They were originally due on Monday; however, our teacher changed the date to Wednesday. I am so glad she did because I am completely swamped with work from all my other classes also. This past week we working more on incorporating movement into music. We learned a few simple dances we could share with our future students. I was practicing my recorder this week because I met with out teacher on Friday to play a few songs for her. This allowed me to receive quite a few extra credit points. I learned the recorder back in my grade school days so it was fun to jog my memory this semester on how to play it. It was probably much easier for me than other in my class because of my music history. I already knew how to read music, unlike some in my class. I have enjoyed this semester very much, and I am sad to see it come to an end so soon.

This past week we only had two class periods. I was unable to attend Monday because of registration for my classes for the fall semester. It was very important for me to register as soon as possible because I needed to get the correct classes. I commute over an hour every day and needed to make sure I my schedule was correct and well planned. On Wednesday in class, we learned a little more about adding movement to songs. The class split into two groups and we had to make up movements to a certain section of the song. We also learned more about teaching children to actively listen to music. It is important to help our students learn how to hear the different components of a song. We do not have class on Fridays anmore because we are supposed to use the extra time to work on our final projects. There is a lot of work involved in this project so I really appreciate this extra time out of class. There are a few students, however, that are still attending class to learn how to play music in the teachers band. It is hard to believe that we only have a couple of weeks left of class for the semester!

Week #13

This week we concentrated on presenting the rest of our lesson plans. Our group presented on Monday, and I believe it went very well. It was was nice to show the rest of the class what we had been working on. There was the last group that presented their lesson on Wednesday. They also did a very nice job. We had our individual lesson plan due for our project. This project was similar to our group project except we are not teaching it to the rest of the class. I enjoy incorportating music in to lessons because I think the children would really enjoy it. It would help them to become more interested in the subject being taught. Our main concentration from now on is going to be our final project. This is a lot of work so I am very glad we have Fridays to work on the content of it. There isn't much left of this semester, and I'm sure it is going to fly by.

Week 12

All of our concentration this week was put towards our group literature projects. We spent a little time on Wednesday reading a story and incorporating music into it. I think my group (social skills) worked well together, and I feel we are very prepared to present on Monday. We were able to accomplish everything expected of us. We completed a lesson plan, incorporated music into the story, and were also able to incorporate an extra lesson into it. Our extra lesson has to deal with telling time. The most exciting part of this process was trying to figure out which instrument could create a sound similar to the animals in our story. The major challenge was the time constraint on us. It is hard with a group with this many people to try to meet together. The class time helped some with this, but I wish we would have had a little more. Overall, I think this activity is a lot of fun and can help us to incorporate it into our classroom when we become teachers. Children can benefit in many ways from this type of lesson. First of all, they will be more excited to learn because of the music. The students will also appreciate our creativity and enjoy using insruments while telling the story. As college students, we enjoy playing the instruments with the stories, so elementary students will absolutely love it.

Week 11

This week we learned more about involving creativity into story telling. Some of the students in our class were able to play new instruments while the story "Chicken Little" was read. We also learned about improvising when we cannot afford instruments. We each brought in some items we though could be used as instruments; for example, some of us brought water bottles and boxes to make sounds to go with the story. This allows children to learn more about music while practicing many other skills. For example, students can learn more about math, science, language, and social skills during story telling. We also practiced a little more on the recorder at the end of the week, and we learned our last note. We will now be able to play many different songs with our recorder. We had a very small amount of time to work on our group project which will incorporate what we have been learning into a lesson. It is very hard for all of us to find time to meet outside of class so this class time is vital. This project will allow us to show all that we have learned lately to the rest of the class.

Week 9

This week we talked about a few new terms and reviewed some past ones. A new term we learned was timbre. Timbre is the tone color of the instrument or voice. This can vary because of the size and type of the instrument. For example, a flute has a very different timbre than a tuba. We also learned about binary form which is when a song has to contrasting sections. We also continued to review different dynamics. This is the volume of the sounds (example: piano & forte).
Early in the week, Adam read a book that allowed us to use our imagination to produce sounds. We each had a certain sound to produce in parts of the story. We also changed the lyrics in the song "what would you do with a drunken sailor" to "what would you do with a boo hoo baby." This further demonstrated the different sound we can produce. It is important for us to learn this because it allows us to be more creative in our classroom as well as allowing our students to use their creativity. Stories similar to these help children to learn to listen. Many students can have a difficult time focusing their attention to listen for certain things and this can help them with that. It will also help them associate words and meanings if they are not familiar with them.

Week 8

Unfortunately, I was really sick this week with the flu. It was a horrible week and now I feel a little behind and lost in class. I'm sure I will be able to catch up with what we are talking about. I read some other students' blogs so that I could have an idea of what was discussed this week. I know creativity was discussed, and why it is important for children to be creative. We are also supposed to do our cuture assignment. I believe I am going to research Costa Rica's culture for my project. I have many friends that have visited there, and it seems like a very interesting place.