Here is my mantra for the new school year:
I will be more organized! I will be more organized! I will be more organized!
I will chant it to myself 500 times per day until it comes true... I also might want to spend some time actually organizing myself but that is so much more effort! I'm starting out by trying to get the first month of school entirely planned out, and have a long term plan for my big units that I want to do for the year. I'm looking forward to ukuleles again for 5th grade, I'm scared of doing recorders with this batch of 4th graders, and I'm seriously contemplating trying to do square dancing with my 3rd graders. I still think that I've lost my mind a little bit for wanted to do square dancing, but I really think it is a good unit of study for 3rd grade to do. The biggest problem I have found with teaching 3rd grade is that they think they are old enough to handle upper grade activities, but in reality they are just as immature as the 1st and 2nd graders. This makes it tougher to have them play along with a lot of the general music activities, but I do not trust them to be focused enough to take on anything too much more structured.
Hmmmmm... So much to think about. I am also in a waiting pattern to see when I going to be able to get back into my classroom. Because I started in the middle of October last year, I'm not 100% sure how this whole beginning on the year thing is going to go. The district calendar says that teachers are scheduled to start again on August 27th, but that's only 2 days before school starts! I can't imagine that they would be able to get everything prepped and ready to go in 2 days time... If I'm really not going to be able to get in there until the 27th, it won't be the end of the world for me because I'm not actually going to be teaching until the next week. I figure that with all the first week madness, and they fact that we're starting on a Wednesday, the teachers are going to have enough on their plate without trying to bring their kids all the way out to music class too. I'm pretty sure that our science teacher isn't going to be starting until the third week of school, so it seems like it's common for specials to start later on. I'm not sure about PE... The teachers might want to kick the kids outside during the first week because they'll still have summer brains.
Anywho...
I'm really excited about my plans for the first week. I have finally found some good music teacher blogs, and I have been doing some hardcore blog stalking. I'm especially enamored with Mrs. Dennis and Mrs. King. Someday I wish to have that many cute things and brilliant ideas. I've basically stolen borrowed and adapted ideas from a bunch of different websites to cobble together my first week plans. Obviously I'm doing introductions, seating chart, rules, name games, etc. but I'm trying to get each grade level moving around and doing some music on the first day too! The song that has been stuck in my head all week has been "To Stop The Train".
I love the way that he implements this song by bringing in the movements first, then introducing the words, and last the melody. It is great to differentiate how the material is introduced to the students, especially when it's easy to get into the rut of echo-singing. I'm planning on doing this activity with 3rd grade on the first day. I'm not super confident that we're going to get to do it in a round on the first day, or even bring in the melody in certain classes, but I think it'll be good to grab their interest. And because my third graders are going to be my little dancers this year, I need to get them super comfortable with moving around. Break down those silly self-doubts and encourage them to be confident.
Well I am off to work on enacting my mantra. I will finish planning K-2 for my second week of teaching.... Or I will put away my laundry.... Or I will do some more on my cross-stitching project.... Or I will eat potato chips and watch HGTV...
Very nice first post!
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