I have a Book 2 class on Wednesday afternoon that has three boys in it. Two of the boys are 7 year old twins. The other boy is also seven. I have the mothers in the room with me for the entire hour. We do not do parent time. Here is a synopsis of how I prepare and what actually happened in class.
Song Circle - Last week's new song was All the Little Ducklings - I plan to do the motions as a finger play. These boys tend to be silly enough and I don't need three aggressive ducks in my room. I follow with the patterns for the song including a lot of patterns with La in them. I also add some aural recognition of tonic chord patterns. (they do the finger play but when it is heads under water, they can't help themselves...butts are in the air wiggling away, lol)
John Kanaka is a chance to dance and I will review the song right after the dance with an f Major warmup. (this week the younger twin finally got the movements. He could not do the hands motions so I just kept modeling them. It helps that the moms were there also doing it. It cuts down the silliness)
See the Pony was last weeks reading piece so I will review the patterns aurally and visually. I use a magnet board and set up the patterns in F Major and each boy will sing and then sing and play the pattern. to keep them all participating I will have one boy sing while another points and the third plays. then they rotate. (this didn't work as I planned. We sang the song and they ran to the pianos to play the reading piece so I followed them. they all proudly put their books up... and played the piece by ear.)
Mouse Mousie - EEEEEKKKK! they have already begged for this piece. I am including it because it is today's dictation (it is now after class and this was not much fun to play today. For some reason one of the boys always cries and gets out of sorts with this game. the idea of getting caught is so overwhelming for him. Sigh!)
When the Train comes Along - I have decided to not teach this piece at the piano. We used bars last week. However we will play the piece at the bars with chords and sing. i also use it as an ensemble piece with shakers and sticks. (After lesson comment - I am so glad we skipped this piece as a by ear piece right now. These boys are struggling with all the by ear pieces. I am slowing the process down with more warm ups and wiggling exercises. I am saving When the Train for a later book. We spent time working with the patterns in John Kanaka and the reading piece See the Pony and F major position. Chords are still a concept for these boys. I did an ensemble with sticks and rattles and I plan to follow the same ensemble set up as is presented in the revised MM curriculum. These boys found it hard to sustain a steady beat.)
Vocal Improv. - this is week one for them (I left it out by mistake last week) so I will first review the yellow duple cards and then I will verbalize what I am doing as I improvise or make up a new rhythm. I will stick to these cards first. Then I will put them away and continue the game. I make sure the boys have thought what pattern they will share before we begin. (This was a lot of fun. Once they got the hang of it, they all could improvise. Very satisfying)
Since I am not doing Train I will Review John Kanaka and add chords in F and I will ask for the piece in other keys as well. I will be working on the Progression of I and V7. (Didn't get to the chords - there is always this line between satisfaction and frustration. chords would have taken these boys to the dark side. However, we did sing the chords in Singing circle. I will prep them aurally and continue to prepare their hands to move from the simpler I chord to the simpler V7 while singing a song.
Pink cards are fast. (after comment: one twin has major OT issues and pointing to the cards and chanting the rhythm pattern is very difficult. But after three repeats he could actually do it. I slowed down the tempo. His rhythm was improving during the game.
concerto - we just get up and dance (and they were so thankful for this movement break)
I am allotting more time for the Dictation since it is their first. I will review the blue melody cards and have them copy them on the magnet boards. (this worked very well. One boy placed his dots in the wrong spaces. I went to the other boy's boards first and by the time I got to his board he had fixed it himself.) Then we pull out the dictation and I go pattern by pattern, playing the aural rec game, asking them where I should place the notes and then have them copy. I encourage them to work quickly. they sing the song as they point to their dots. Then I put up the four rhythm patterns on the board and we go through the piece adding rhythm. this used to take forever but by putting the rhythm choices on the board, they have a better chance of success.(Success was in the air. One boy with the OT issue was spending a lot of time forming his notes. I encouraged him to draw faster and more efficiently. This made such a difference for this boy. He worked faster and caught up with the boys and was accurate and he was very proud of this. I also spent a lot of time making sure they verbalized where the notes were placed. By the end of the dictation they could state exactly that the Do was "below the staff", mi was in the First space and the Sol was in the second space. At first they wanted to say they were sitting on the line.)
I look at page 7 - homework - listen to any shares and hand out home assignments. We don't have time to write them in the book so I have them printed out. I leave spaces on the page to add pieces and customize the work for each child. I write in anything I need to add. (after class - my boys just can't sit through a home assignment writing event. Handing out the assignment closes the class quickly. It also gives the class more time for sharing which they all did)
I hope this gives you a good idea of how to prepare for a keyboard class and how it may differ in the actual class but that is OK because there is always next week.
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