Bryson
Tarbet, you're listening to that music podcast with me. Bryson Tarbet, I'm the music educator and blogger behind that music teacher and that musicteacher.com
Join me as I dive into what it really means to be a music educator. I hope they are able to find a nugget of inspiration each week as I share my favorite ways to create purposeful instruction through active music making along the way, you'll hear from some of my amazing colleagues as they share practical advice that you can apply to your own classrooms. So grab a coffee, sit down, and let's get started.
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that's that music teacher, Comm, slash, N, E, W, B, I, E,
and we are back. I am so excited to be back for season three of the podcast. When I started the podcast, I really didn't know what was going to become of it. It all came out of me having the Instagram lives with wonderful guests. And at the time, we couldn't save anything, so I just started doing podcasts as a way to record these wonderful conversations. And here we are at the beginning of season three, and I can't be more thankful for all of you that have been with me in this journey so far. This season is going to be packed full of wonderful interviews and solo episodes where we're going to dive into what it means to be a music teacher and how we can really do things in a meaningful way so that we're able to be the best music teachers we can be, but we're not sacrificing in other parts of our lives. In this episode, we're going to be talking about one of my goals for this school year, which is all about my lesson planning and the way that I use transitions to help everything seamlessly move together. For those of you that don't know, I have just finished my second Summer of Code I training, which has been wonderful, and it has honestly changed who I am as an educator. But something that really stuck with me this time, even more than level one, was that transitions are incredibly important, and to some degree, transitions are almost one of the most important things that you do in your classroom. I want you to think about the last time your class has gone a little bit off the wall, or classroom management kind of became a little bit hard to handle in the situations that come to my mind in my own classroom. A lot of the time it comes down to those transitions. It's when I am moving from one activity to the next. Is when these students kind of get the opportunity to get off track, or to be a little wild, or to start talking. So that's where transitions come in, and why they're so important, because they help set students up for success, but they also just help our lessons flow smoothly through their entire lesson, because everything is seamlessly connected. Why this is by no means only something that happens in codi influenced classrooms. It's something that is really it's really talked about a lot in code I at trainings and workshops, and especially at my training at Capital, has really kind of been drilled into us as to how these transitions can really help us and our students in the classroom. This year, I've decided to set a goal of lesson planning in a brand new way. If you followed me at all and hadn't heard me share my experience with how I lesson plan every other year. Up until this point, I've been using a Google Sheet template where I basically just been having a list of objectives and different activities and materials that I needed for a lesson this year, I've decided to use a codai influence lesson plan template where one of the parts of it is transitioning and really scripting out, or figuring out exactly how you're going to transition from one activity to the another, or one song to the other and I'm about two weeks into this process so far, two weeks into this experiment, and I have a lot that I want to share. I've definitely fallen in love with this type of lesson plan, and I want to kind of break down the ways that I use transitions in my classroom,
because they've been so helpful to my lessons so far already this year. I want to start out by saying I really think that we should have transitions thought out for every different activity that we're doing in our classroom. For example, if you're starting your kindergarten lesson with engine engine number nine, and then you're going into Apple.
Tree. How are you going to get from engine engine number nine to apple tree? If I were to transition between these songs, first, I would basically lead the students into the classroom on engine engine number nine, having me as the leader, and I'm walking them in the classroom in a circle. And then basically, when we're done with engine engine number nine, we are in a circle, ready to play apple tree and ready to sing apple tree, and we're already in that formation. So we don't have to deal with any sort of physical like where they need to be shift. It's we're already exactly where we need to be when it comes to actually pivoting between the different activities or songs. Don't try to overthink it. There are some really, really creative ways that you can transition between one activity to the next, but there are also some really simple ones that I use a lot. One that I use a lot is I might have the students say and clap the rhythms or sing and sign the melodies, especially if we're moving into an activity that that helps relate. So if we're going to be using apple tree for melodic dictation, then I might have the students sing and sign it, or maybe do it on their sing it and do the body staff. But if our next activity is more rhythmic, I'll have the students probably sing the rhythm and or sing the song and clap the rhythm as they have a seat, or as they move back to their spots or whatever. Because not only are we giving them something to do? Especially, you know, if we're done with the game and we're moving into another activity, we're giving them something for their hands to do. We're giving something for their mouth to do. So they have three things they need to focus on. That's a lot. They need to sing, they need to walk, and they need to clap. And I'll be honest, sometimes it can take a little bit of getting used to, and you kind of need to put your foot down, you know, if people don't sing right, say all right, we're gonna go back and try it again, because I didn't hear enough people singing. But eventually your kids will get it. They'll get that. That's what is expected of them. And because they are moving insane at the same time you get those you don't really have as much opportunity for students to talk to each other or to get a little wild. And then as soon as they get back to their spot, you can really move right into the next activity without having to wait for them to physically transition.
One of the little bit more of an advanced transition would be to use some sort of ostinato to actually connect the two songs. So if I were doing engine, engine number nine, and I was transitioning into apple tree, I might have the students just start repeating the pattern of engine, engine number nine, and use that as an ostinato. And then I start singing apple tree, apple tree. And we use that ostinato as the pivot. So once the students are able to sing it through, while they're doing the rhythmic Asana. I'm singing the song. I might say something like, who can raise their hand and tell me, you know, what was I singing that works on their inner hearing as well, or not necessarily, inner hearing, but it makes them work on hearing while they're doing something else. And some part work, but it also works as a seamless pivot between two songs, if you're trying to include more inner hearing in your classrooms, which I highly recommend. Then, having students Id known songs is a wonderful transition. You know, these transitions, they can be super smooth, but sometimes it's like, oh, right, my next song, I'm gonna sing it to you, but I'm not gonna sing the words. I'm only gonna sing it on Lou if you will have a guess as to what song this is, go ahead and raise your hand. And then I'll sing the song on Lou
Lu, so on and so forth. And then I'll have students like, Hey, Johnny, what do you think that song is? And he might think, Oh, I think it's Snail, snail. So I'll have the students say, all right, Johnny thinks it's Snail, snail. I want you to check it in your brain, and I want you to show me with her sign language, either yes or no, and I'm gonna sing it again, but I want you to check it in your brain, and I'll sing
it's a great way for students to for us as teachers, to kind of see what our students are able to hear. It takes a little bit of getting used to, especially as students are really able to hear it, and understanding that, hey, if it's wrong, that's totally fine. But that kind of transition where the student's idea is wonderful for for inner hearing, and it doesn't just have to be melodic, you can also do it rhythmic. If there's a chant or a song that students have you know been working on, and you can clap it, and the students can ID it, that is a another great way. But I want to give you a little bit of a warning for any of these identification pivots, and that is to be careful, especially with the younger grades, a lot of the songs are the same, so be ready for answers that are not the song you're looking for, that are technically correct. And honestly, those are that's a really good way to show that. Hey, you know some song sometimes songs are great, or sometimes songs are the same. And be like, Oh, Johnny, you're right. That is that song is that but actually, I have a different song in my brain. Let's see if we can think of another song this would work for. So just be ready for that, as if you're going to use that for your transitions, if one of your lessons objectives is having students reading off the board. What I would do?
So actually, what I did just today, as I'm recording this is I wrote the stick notation with the soul FOSS syllables on the board, and I have the students listen in the brain, so that's a little bit of inner hearing, a little bit of reading. And I said, who can raise their hand and tell me what song you think I have written on the board? And that is a wonderful pivot, and it's also another great way for you to start to reinforce the reading and inner hearing part of music without necessarily making it like a whole big deal, right? It's just, hey, I want you to read this and like, see what you can tell me what this is actually like. Today was the first time I ever tried that with my students. And my second graders did amazing. Just make sure that it's a song that the students know. Make sure that it's a song that it's a song that the students know all of the the different elements. So if you know, if you're going to write it rhythmically and melodically, make sure that they they know you know all the solfa and all the rhythmic syllables for those especially if you're following a more code I influenced approach, and then we have my all time favorite way to transition within a lesson. And I'm not gonna lie, this is one of the strategies that take a little bit more forethought, and that is to use story to connect all of your songs within a lesson to some sort of story. So for instance, if I'm starting on engine engine number nine and I'm transitioning to apple tree, I might we get to the end of engine, engine number nine, and said, Oh my goodness, the engine made it to the station. And we looked to our left, and there is a beautiful orchard. I walked over to the orchard because I was kind of hungry after being on that train all day, so I decided to grab some apples. But none of the apples at the bottom were ripe yet, but there was one that was all the way at the top. So I climbed up the apple tree, and guess what happened? It fell on my head. And then, basically, you're using that story to connect everything together. And again, because there's a narrative going on, there's no time for distraction, there's no time for students to talk, because you're moving right from one thing to the other. And you know, you could keep that going. And if at the end, you're going from engine, engine number nine to something else like, or if you're going from apple tree to something else like, oh my goodness, I had so many apples that I decided to take a nap, and then you go into tuer me, duermi or whatever. So I love using stories to bring everything together. And what's really cool, especially at the younger kids or younger ages, it can be a little easier with some of the song material, but if you can get, like, a children's book that goes along with the theme, or, you know, if you're doing fall, if it's autumn and you're trying to do apples and pumpkins, like there's lots of literature, there lots of songs, lots of repertoire that you can use to kind of make a little narrative within your lesson. And that storytelling really allows those kids to be not only does it hook them, but it keeps them engaged, so that those transitions really work seamlessly, so that your lesson, it just goes by so quickly. You're able to get through so much. And the students are like, Wait, we're done. That was it. I feel like we just got here, because using that storytelling is a wonderful, wonderful way to make a lesson just seamlessly go together.
There are countless other ways to transition within a lesson. I wanted to share a few of my favorites, and I hope that you'll apply them, and honestly, if you end up trying one of these strategies in your classroom, I would love if you would reach out to me and let me know how it went, because I want to hear it. And if you have other transitions, please, please share them with me, because I'm looking for more and more transitions to use in my classroom, especially with my older kids. Because, you know, having them clap the rhythm and sing back to their spots is fine, but I would love to try some different transitions along the way. I hope that you found this episode super helpful, and I really do hope that you try these in your classroom, because they can really help your lesson just go together seamlessly and help everything connect in such a meaningful way. And it just, it just helps us as teachers, because students aren't going off the walls as much, hopefully, and they don't, because they don't have the opportunity to talk as much. They don't have the opportunity to get off task, because we're moving right from one activity the next seamlessly. So I hope that you find these helpful, and again, please let me know if you end up using them in your classroom. If
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