Kindergarten Lesson 1

Well, here we are at the start of a new school year, and the start of a new Arts Bridge adventure! This year's challenge is KINDERGARTEN. I feel overwhelmingly unqualified but I am ready to tackle a new challenge and grow as a teacher and a woman! Fortunately, the morning class has continuously welcomed me with open arms (literally, and lots of hugs) throughout the few times that I have visited as an observer, so I feel that the children were somewhat excited to finally actually have me speak to them and not just sit there as a smiling stranger. I had yet to even meet the afternoon class, however, so I was incredibly anxious to see how they would accept both me and my first lesson into their class.

Just from the first lesson, I have observed how difficult it is to keep the attention of kindergarteners. While I was flattered that there were so many students that wanted to sit by me, it ended up causing so much contention that I moved around a couple of times to make as many people happy as possible. I still have a lot to learn about classroom management, I suppose. I need to be better at establishing clear rules from the start instead of just trying to please everyone, right?

Fortunately, I think the lesson was effective in that the children seemed to enjoy how physically engaging it was. It did take me awhile, however, to find a way to balance both extremes of high activity/volume and silence so that I could be heard, but I feel that by the time I got to the afternoon class, I had found some tricks that worked with the morning class toward the latter end of the lesson. Once I found the right timing for the students to repeat the student's name and do the animal action/sound, it was easy to balance the extremes. In addition, when I would say things like "Now sit down!" and made the ending of the animal sounds a game in itself, it was relatively easy to control the class! I wish that I had thought of these things for the morning class, so I'll be sure to make a mental note of it to be more effective for my next lesson.

Many of the students had similar favorite animals, so I tried to experiment and ask the students for suggestions of how we could portray certain animals in a different way by changing our voice or body in a certain way. I wanted them to start thinking about variation in preparation for our next lesson.

Once again, another important discovery was made between the morning and afternoon classes. In the morning class, I really tried to keep the suggested animals in the song within the world of a typical "jungle." However, by the time I got to the afternoon class, I realized that this was their jungle, so they should create it how they wanted to, and what a grand jungle it was! Their were even dinosaurs (a class favorite for the lesson, for which we all got to ROAR at the top of our lungs)!! I think this discovery was the most important one of the lesson. After all, how can I expect them to use their imaginations, if I am really expecting them to use mine? I am merely a tool to guide them to their creative expression, not to tell them how they should or shouldn't express themselves creatively.

I can already tell that this is going to be one exciting adventure.

Lesson for: October 6, 2016

Lesson 1: Seefari Part 1

Strand: Create, Perform

Standards:

• CR.1: Develop imagination to create artistic ideas and work.
• CR.2: Arrange the physical playing space to communicate mood, time, and locale.
• CR.5: Create character through physical movement, gesture, sound, and/or speech and facial expression.
• P.6: Use imagination to support artistic choices.

Objective: Students will demonstrate their ability to use their imagination, bodies, and voices to bring a setting to life by pretending to be animals.

Materials needed: Lots of open space!

Hook: Get to know you/name game activity. Invite the students to sit in a circle on the floor. Going around the circle, have each student say his or her name and his or her favorite animal. Then, invite the class to say that student’s name and make that animal’s sound/action together as a class. For example, if Sammy likes lions, the class could say, while making lion claws: “Sammy! ROAR!” If Clara likes bunnies, the class could say “Clara” while hopping up and down.

Step 1: Transition. Tell the students that in drama, we get to use our imagination. Invite them to imagine that they are in a jungle. Ask them what animals they might see in a jungle (if they list an animal in the song from step 2, it will be an easy transition).

Step 2: Group practice. Teach them the song from the YouTube video (see lesson supplements) and after doing a couple examples (ie parrot and crocodile), ask the students for suggestions of what other animals might be in the jungle (ie lion, tiger, monkey, snake, etc.) and what sound those animals make. Sing the song a few times through using their suggested animals and sounds.

Lesson Supplements:

Jungle song YouTube video link: https://youtu.be/ppVUYakfSq4