Week 4

Yet another week has come to a close, and we have continued to refresh the skills and concepts already taught to us, as well as adding in new information. One of the more exciting things we worked on this week was lesson planning and how to present and form our own lessons. Musicially we learned a few new skills, including rests and rhythmic pattern. Rhythmic pattern was also taught to us during the song "Ti De Oh", which was a fun way to learn because we got a chance to move around, learning not only through psychomotor funcations, but cognitive as well. On Friday we learned a new note, C, on the recorder. Although it was only one new note we were able to enhance our recorder skills greatly and play even more songs than we usually do.

Lesson planning was shown in a variety of ways. During class the instructor had a few lessons she presented to us as though we were younger children so we could pick up what she was doing. We discussed what we were doing, what concepts we were working on, and different ways to teach it during the presentation. We also looked on the written lesson plan format we had to fill in what was being done so we understood it more. To learn about rests we first did clapping and then a song for "Bow Wow Wow" and we made sure to incorporate a rest space into our dance and clapping. The rest signs were also given on the board so that we knew what they were supposed to look like and could identify them in our music. During the song Ti De Oh we moved around a lot and did a fun dance which most of us enjoyed to learn the rhythmic pattern. We played several new songs on Friday with our recorders. In almost everything we listened to the music first, repeated it, and added in new skills afterwards, such as the dancing or clapping. This week we were also able to have a great deal more discussion than usual, mostly concerning the lesson plans; however, it was nice to get a chance to ask questions and interact with the class.

While it is important to learn all of these concepts and skills for varoius reasons, I think one of the most useful thing that we did this week was to work on lesson plans. Although our official lesson plan isn't due until next week, working on it was a great opportunity. All of us are going to need to know how to make lesson plans, and in many of our classes we really haven't been given that chance yet, and even if we have it may not have been so specific or incorporated so many things, so it is great practice. This is one of the things we are going to need to know how to do no matter what, and even though we may not be making music lessons in the future they will be similar to what we are doing now. It is a great skill to pick up, so I'm very glad we are doing it. It is also important for us to learn about rests and silent beats because when talking about steady beat and rhythm we have realized that there were going to be rests, but haven't been showig them.

For children it is important to know about rests because without them they could get the entire rhythm and beat of a song incorrect. They need to know how to pause at certain parts and incorporate silence into their music, so it is a good skill and concept to know. Also, the different clapping and stomping is good for children because it will help them with their coordination, something that is very important for children to learn but often gets ignored. Like last week, the recorder is important to teach at a young age because they will just pick up on it so much better than many adults do, so the younger we start children in music the more they will comprehend.