Journal #1

Natalie Grote
Reflection Journal: #1
9/20/09
In this first unit, we learned about rhythm which is defined as a combination of short, long, and silent sounds. In rhythm there is also something called the steady beat which is the same notes which doesn’t really change a lot in a song. We also learned what melody of a song is. Melody is defined as a combination of pitches and pitches are the highness and lowness of a note. In order to add rhythm we had to learn the types of notes. We learned whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, and sixteenth note (these are put in order of longest notes to the shortest notes).
We learned these things by learning the welcome song called “Hello Everybody”. In class we used a very easy cut down for this song. By putting the words into boxes we were able to identify the notes that went along with the words in this song. Including the notes that are in this song we learned some of the other common notes that are used in other pieces of music. We also learned the names of the all the students in the class while having fun.
This was very important to learn because this understanding of music is the building block which all music is built on. I have been in music classes since sixth grade so a lot of this is a review but a good way for me to help others and get a review of the concepts. Learning notes will help us to understand the making of any musical thing. This also gives us ideas about different ways of teaching students which maybe a better way of learning than others.
It is important for students in elementary school to learn the different parts of music because when learning different types and parts of music there is many other skills to be learned. In songs students can learn math skills by songs that count like in the song that we sang in class called “Tideo”. These different skills can be used in the regular classrooms to help students remember important information needed to for the rest of their life. In music this also gives the children a chance to express themselves in a way that other things may not be able to.

Lesson Plan #1

Natalie Grote
Music 373
Lesson Plan #1
Activity: Bee Bee Bumble bee
Grade Level: First

Concepts
• Music: Rhythm- Quarter and Eighth Notes
• Non-music: Social Skills/Interacting with their class mates in a proper manner
Skills
• Music: Singing, Keeping the Beat
• Non- Music: Moving with the song
Objectives
The Students will be able to:
• Clap with the rhythm of the song
• Move round the circle while singing the song
• Interact with their peers
Materials
• Open Space
• Post-it Notes
Procedure
• Greet the class and have them sit in a circle
• Then one time through the teacher will sing the song while the students keep the steady beat
• Then the teacher will break down the song into smaller pieces
• The students will sing and make up a movement to go along with it
• Have them stand up and pick a student to be the leader that student will move to the outside of the circle
• The teacher will have the students inside bounce their knees to go with the steady beat
• The student that is outside the circle will go around and trap the students on the head with the steady beat when they get to the end of the song they will stop on the person that is out and switch places
• Continue until each student gets a turn
• While this is happening the teacher will start clapping the notes out
• Then have the move into smaller groups(3-4 students)
• Take the post-it notes and see if they can pick out the rhythm of the song by starting line by line
Closure
• Ask the students what notes are in the song.
• Ask them about which lines are the same in the song.
• See if they are able to tell what notes are used in the song and where.
Assessment
• Where the students able to find the steady beat?
• Where the students able to sing the song?
• Could they take turns with being the tagger?
• Could the students make the note pattern that was inside each line?

Assignment 3

1. A long-term goal is something that is not to specific which someone will hope to achieve at a later date. This could be something like I plan to have the students understand and appreciate musical by the end of the school year. A short-term goal has to relate to your long term goal, it is something that will help you achieve your long-term goal. For the last long-term goal which I stated before a short –term goal would be having the students research a musical that they have been interested in.

2. A Music concept is a grouping of information that is collected together because they have some of the same properties. Some examples that were given in the text are rhythm, melody, texture, dynamics, tone color, or timbre, and form.

3. When teachers are talking about musical skill it deals with looking at the progress of the student. If they are improving and becoming better than they are becoming better at their musical skills. There is three different areas that the book talks about when looking at the students skill level. This is musical performance which could have to perform or sing a piece of music. Then there is perception and understanding of musical concepts this is a very easy to see if the students understand the musical skills by testing them with a test or quiz. Last thing is acquisition and retention of information about music which again away that a teacher could test for the is by test or quizzes.

4. In the book they explain eight easy steps that teacher could use when writing lesson plans but with all lesson plans there needs to be a lot of detail and planning that go into each and everyone.

a) What is the activity?

b) Whom is the lesson for?

c) What concepts do you want to teach?

d) What materials do you need?

e) What do you want to do?

f) How are you going to do it?

*Preliminary

*Main Content

g) How will you tie everything together?

h) Did you teach what you thought you were going to?

5. As it is stated in the book there is nine national standards in music education which are..

I. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music

II. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music

III. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments

IV. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines

V. Reading and notating music

VI. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music

VII. Evaluating music and musical performances

VIII. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts

IX. Understanding music in relation to history and culture

6. I believe that music is a very important to a child. There is many different things that music will help child do and skills that they need to learn some of the examples is social skills, motor skills, listening to directions, learning to be led by other not just taking control. When teaching the child music it is not about making sure that they are really good at it but giving student many choices to enjoy and appreciate music.