The first time I got to observe Katie McIntosh, I saw her 5th grade chorus, 4th grade chorus, and 3rd grade general music. The two choruses include every single student from each of the grades. As such, there are over 60 kids in each chorus and classroom management is crucial. Katie does a fantastic job of looking ahead to prevent misbehavior and musical cues in order regain control without having to yell. The routines involve stretches, warm-up songs that they also do as rounds, and sight reading from folk song books. Once they go through these things, they start working on the repertoire, mostly by rote. The music is challenging but doable and includes many multicultural selections.
In the general music class they were focused on recorder. As students walked in, "In the Hall of the Mountain King" was playing and students were asked to think about the focus question as they get settled into their spots. The question was, "What is the tempo of this piece of music?" which they discussed as a class. The students brought many descriptive and insightful ways to look at the music. After this opening, Katie filled out on the board a worksheet that they would soon do in groups, which involved creating a recorder composition using the notes G, A, and B. After the class was in groups, I was able to go around the room and both help students with questions (such as correcting rhythmic values and notation) and playing their compositions for them on recorder so they could hear how they sound and make changes based on how the piece sounded. This was great because I was able to passively react with students while also getting to observe how they go about composing and correcting mistakes with their peers.
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AuthorReese Massey recounts her observations of elementary and secondary music teachers during her time in pre-practicum. Archives
November 2019
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