Lesson 3: Keeping the Beat

Lesson Plan:

Grade: 3

Musical Concept:  Beat, melody

Time: 45 minutes

Element: Rhythm, pitch

Materials:  Rhythm Sticks

National Music Standard:

1. Performing: Rehearse, Evaluate, and Refine: Evaluate and refine personal and ensemble performances, individually, or in collaboration with others.
2. Creating: Imagine: Generate musical ideas for various purposes and contexts.

Specific National Standards:

1. MU:Pr5.1.3b: Rehearse to refine technical accuracy, expressive qualities, and identified performance challenges.
2. MU:Cr1.1.3b: Generate musical ideas (such as rhythms and melodies) within a given tonality and/or meter.

Objectives:

1. Students will be able to show a steady beat through movement and playing rhythm sticks, including creating their own pattern to keep the beat.
2. Students will be able to sing the pitches of Toembai with accuracy.

Procedure:

1. Gain Attention - Focus in on listening - sitting down - 10 Minutes
1. During our warm up today, let's focus on listening really closely.  What do you need to do when you are listening to me?  Look at me, not speak, don't distract neighbor's.
2. Warm up the breath (balloon)
3. Repeat one pitch
4. Repeat 2 pitches
5. Repeat short phrase
6. Sing "Hello There" on loo
7. Sing "Hello There" with the words
8. Sing "Hello There" again, this time singing the last phrase all together
2. Inform learners of objectives
1. Today we are going focus on keeping a steady beat and singing Toembai more accurately.  Make sure you really use your ears to listen to what I'm singing, like you practiced in our warm-up.
2. Let's see what we remember from Toembai!  Do the dance in rows.
3. Present the content
1. Does anyone know what the beat is in music?  Can you show me?
2. Let's sing Toembai and keep the beat.
3. The beat is like your heart beat - it is constant and steady.
4. The beat can be fast or slow, but in music it is steady throughout the song.
4. Rhythm Sticks
1. Today we are going to use rhythm sticks. Some rules for our rhythm sticks:
1. When I put my rhythm sticks in one hand and hold them above my head, you must also do this.
2. This will be a sign that it is time to be quiet and listen to directions.
3. If you do not follow directions, put your rhythm sticks in the air and listen for further instructions, I will have to take your rhythm sticks away. :(  I don't want to take anyone's rhythm sticks away today!
2. Find four ways to play your rhythm sticks while I pass then out.  Share.
3. Sing Toembai, keeping beat with rhythm sticks (floor, cross).  SLOWER THAN TEMPO.
4. Depending on how they do, change the dynamics, see how quietly we can keep the beat.
5. Try a 2 more differ ways of keeping the beat. Floor, tap neighbors.
6. Change tempos.  Slow, Medium, Fast
7. Everyone find a partner. Practice tap, cross with your partner.
8. Sing Toembai with kids in partners.
9. Give students 2 minutes to come up with their own pattern to keep the beat (think about all the sounds you discovered you can make with your rhythm sticks).  Make your pattern 2 or 4 beats long.  Sing Toembai with your partner to see if your pattern fits the beat of the song.
10. Sing Toembai, having the students performing their own rhythms with their partner.
11. Have students share a pattern they created of 2 or 4 beats.  Have a row of students and their partners do their pattern while the rest of the class sings.
12. Ask the students if they are ready for a challenge! I will sing a new song, and you will find the beat.  Listen closely, and when you are ready, you may keep the beat with your rhythm sticks.
1. Sing "Ah Poor Bird" - slow
2. Sing the new melody on "loo" - fast.
13. Collect half the rhythm sticks while talking about the next step (reminding students about the steps).
5. Dancing Toembai.
1. When we do our dance with Toembai, what should be we stepping to?  (To the beat)
2. Have half the students do the dance without you leading, while the other half do a pattern on their rhythm sticks.
3. Do it in a round - dance starts, then sticks start.
4. Divide class in 4 sections.  2 part round, half doing the dance, half doing the sticks in each group. SWITCH.
6. Perform/Assess Performance
1. Teacher observation. (Particularly applies to singing Toembai with more accuracy, can really tell if they have it when they do it in a round by themselves.)
2. Move the beat during dance for Toembai.
3. Keep the beat with rhythm sticks.
4. Finding the beat on new songs they haven't heard before.

Reflection:

Overall, I felt that this lesson went very well.  I received an email, per my request, from Ms. Grgich detailing some classroom management tips for me to try.  I implemented some of her tips, including positive praise of students following instructions, just waiting for students to give me their attention instead of talking over them with instructions to be quiet, and setting expectations at the beginning of class.  This last tip was particularly helpful as I thought about how to manage rhythm sticks.  Due to Ms. Grgich's counsel, I planned to give my instructions before handing them out.  This worked very well throughout the lesson, because I gave the students detailed instructions about what they were to do with their rhythm sticks when I was giving instructions.  I am learning more each week about managing a classroom and this week was the most successful so far.  There were moments when I caught myself doing something that would lead to chaos and stopped, and other moments were I realized by mistake too late and it took a minuet to regain the attention of the students because of my mistake.  However, just the fact that I have become more aware of how to manage the class is very exciting to me!

As far as content goes, the students quickly learned what the beat is and I observed improvement throughout the class.  Most students were able to keep the beat with their rhythm sticks by the end, and most were walking to beat during the dance for Toembai.  Their singing of Toembai certainly improved.  They were must more confident at the end of this lesson than they were at the end of the first Toembai lesson, and were singing the rhythms and notes with much greater accuracy.  This was due to the many repetitions we did over such a short period of time.

One thing that I could have improved on was being even more familiar with my lesson plan.  While I was familiar with the big picture and able to carry out the lesson well, I forgot some important details that would have kept the children engaged, even at the end when we had already sung Toembai (what may seem to them to be) 100 times.  The small detail I forgot to include in my implementation of the lesson was changing dynamics and the tempo of the piece.  This would have made the repetitions more interesting for the students, particularly toward the end of the lesson.  I think that familiarizing myself even more with the small details of my lesson would have helped.  Dr. May observed me today and using dynamics and tempo as a way of varying repetitions was a suggestion she made that I could use to improve.  I thought it was interesting that she spoke of them as tools to always have in your back pocket, ready to go at any time.  So perhaps, rather than putting variations of dynamics and tempo in my lesson plan, I could add it to my toolbox and be prepared to use those tools for varying repetitions of the same piece or pattern at any time.  Both would have allowed me to keep the students more engaged toward the end of the lesson.  However, thinking of it as a tool to have prepared would likely be more helpful in future lessons.