Spring fever is a real thing and it is happening right now! It’s that time in the school year when the weather is getting warmer, the end of the school year is around the corner, the kids get a little crazy (ok, a LOT crazy), and the teachers are getting exhausted and running out of ideas to keep the kids motivated and engaged!
So for my private lesson students that means a recital is on the way. Something new to break up the routine and give them a new challenge to work towards. For my classroom students that means lots of movement and stations/centers. Activities that still require them to think, review, and work together in small groups but gives them opportunity to chat and be a little more free.
If you don’t know what stations/centers are or have never done them, here’s a little insight. Basically I put the kids into small groups of 3 or 4. Some teachers call them centers, some call them stations. Whatever you call them, you can do them a couple different ways, and I have done them both ways depending on the day. You can set up different stations around the room and at each station is a different activity. Then groups rotate through the stations every 5-7 minutes until they’ve gone through all of them. Or you can have the groups stay stationary but give them several activities to do in any order as a group. The activities are quick and easy so the class stays fast paced.
I didn’t necessarily plan to do this the whole month of April but its just sort of worked out that way. Each week we start with a short upbeat worship song, then do a group activity as a whole class, either playing a couple recorder exercises or some type of movement. Then we break up into our groups. I have all my classes in pre-made groups based on instrument families at the beginning of the school year (woodwind group, string group, etc.) so anytime I need them in groups, they already know where to go and with who. I also use these groups for things like lining them up in folk dance formations or partner activities.
Last week we did some solfege matching with ice cream cones and composing with dice. This week, we did instrument matching, practiced step/skip/jump patterns on the staff, and did note value matching with cupcakes!
The kids love the stations! It keeps them busy, they are not stuck in a chair, nor are they just sitting and listening to me talk. They are actively learning and reviewing material we’ve gone over in class, they are learning to work with their classmates, and often they are teaching each other, which makes my job easier and very satisfying!
I’ll be sharing more about our spring recital with my private students in another post so stay tuned!
Miss Donna 4 Music 