Teaching Elementary General Music on a Cart
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Season 1 | Episode 57
Show Notes
Any ideas for teaching on a cart? I’m saddened by the lack of space to move and play instruments.
I’m teaching on a cart this year. Any suggestions for easy-to-transport activities?
Teaching on a cart with no space for movement - students are at desks
Episode 13 - Teaching Music on a Cart
Two categories - logistics & curriculum
This is a creative challenge, and you are a creative person.
Feel sad. Feel angry. Feel grateful for a space at all. Feel disappointed. Feel jealous. Feel all of them because they’re all real and they all make sense.
Communicate with your administration - it is likely they have an office they use throughout the whole school day, and in that office they have a desk with a clear surface. If I were to ask that administrator to bring their computer and office supplies with them every 45 minutes to a different room, that would be challenging. It would also be challenging if there was no way to clear the desk surface where they need to put papers or their keyboard down. Instead let’s imagine every desk is built with blocks attached to the top, arranged so there isn’t room to put down their things. So instead of laying a notebook on the desk so they can write on the page, they would need to cut each paper into strips and lay it down on the desk in different pieces and write that way. Can they still write? Sure. But yikes their job just got a lot more difficult. Administrators want the school to run smoothly. Their job is to make the school run smoothly. Your job is to teach music. If you’re being asked to teach music but they’re taking away the resources for you to teach music…… The job becomes less sustainable. The school isn’t running smoothly.
Comparing Contexts:
Two things are true. This situation is not ideal. It’s not the best for you, which means it’s not the best for the students. And you can do this. This is a creative challenge and you are a creative person.
In a typical music room:
Sing greetings, do rhythm improvisation, sing a welcome song
Main concentration areas with first and second lesson objective:
Singing songs
Speaking rhymes
Playing games
Moving with structured and creative movement
Reading and writing
Improvising, arranging, and composing
Change of pace
Often a movement activity that may or may not connect to the purpose of the lesson
In a typical general classroom:
What activities can still work? Can we still sing? Can we read? Can we improvise?
We can do every single one of the things we would do in the music room. We just won’t be doing it in the same context.
What Activities Work on a Cart?
This is a question doomed to lead to isolated activities that don’t connect week to week. It’s adding unnecessary noise. Let’s find a different way to ask that question.
What activities work to teach ________________?
We’ve already seen that we can do the exact same musical skills.
Of those, which ones work with limited space and minimal physical apparatus? This changes the question as well. Instead of “activities to teach rhythm practice with no instruments,”
Which ones just need a quick adjustment?
Lazy Genius: How to pack a lunch for work? Don’t start by googling recipes.
Start by clarifying the purpose and the parameters.
Curriculum on a Cart:
Decide the purpose - our big picture goals have not changed.
The purpose can inform the structure.
Movement & Games:
Passing Games - Younger students:
All students pat a steady beat on their heads, shoulders, knees, desk, etc.
One student (or the teacher) at the front points around the room to a steady beat
When a student is landed on, they either go to the front of the room to point or they have another job, like a found instrument or a classroom instrument
Passing Games - Older students
Older students enjoy passing games too!
After you demonstrate, students might get into groups at their desk pods, or find somewhere else in the room to be in a group of four. Students play the passing game, or make up their own version
When someone is out, they stay where they are. The group that shows they’re ready plays instruments.
Folk Dances:
Alabama Gal
Circle around the parameter of the room
v. 1 - 2 ss on opposite sides of the circle walk to the middle and high five
v. 2 - walk eight steps to the right, then eight steps to the left
v. 3 - wring the dishrag four times
v. 4 - do the wave
Re-Imagining Movement Activities:
Non-Locomotor words: Balance, sway, bend, curl, stretch, swing, twist
Props: Cotton ball, scarf, ball
Body percussion
Instruments:
Episode 34 - Strategies for Sharing Instruments
Bring a few of your favorite instruments, not necessarily a list from the internet.
Think vertically about instrument choice - What might you use several lessons across multiple grades?
Prep with body percussion and give everyone a job
Episode 28 - Teaching a Partwork Piece on Barred Instruments
Students work in groups to arrange their building blocks for body percussion. A few groups at a time go to a barred instrument and try a few improvisations
While Your Brain is on Fire….
Sometimes we need some breathing room while we figure out what to do next.
This is the time for the boomwacker play-along videos, the TPT listening lessons, the “just for fun” ideas from the internet. Do whatever feels easy and fun for one full week while you make a plan. You have time to figure out how to teach in this new setting.
Episode 12 - Lesson Planning When You’re Burnt Out
Too Many Pumpkins
Read the story
We’ve talked about how to facilitate the passing game and sharing barred instruments
Use the level 1 and level 2 version
Listen for students using their singing voice and matching pitch. Listen for students keeping the same ensemble steady beat.
Do this activity while you make a plan.
