In a previous

Previous knowledge and skills:

Before this activity, students would have cognitive knowledge of steady beat, rhythm, and rhythm vs beat. They would have plenty of experience speaking, singing, playing instruments, moving to, improvising, arranging, listening, and aurally identifying these concepts in other songs. They’d also be familiar with the rhyme, Engine Engine, as well as the scaffolded version of the activity where the teacher is the only train leader.

Process:

Students sit on one side of the room and decide if they’ll speak the rhyme on text while patting the steady beat (option 1) or speak the rhyme on ta and ta-di while clapping the long and short sounds of the words (option 2). In other words, students choose if they’ll perform the rhythm or the beat.
- This is an assessment that we would expect students to pass at this point.
- Recruiting Interest / Optimize individual choice and autonomy
This time, all students are at the station waiting for a train. They’ll clap the rhythm and speak on ta and ta-di.
The teacher is the conductor and moves a train of four students around the room stepping a steady beat while the students at the station clap the rhythm. The teacher drops off passengers when the rhyme is over. Each passenger chooses their replacement and we speak the rhyme again.
Eventually transition to a student conductor and multiple trains moving around the room when students are ready.
In a later class, choose a station master to play the steady beat on UPP, and a ticket master to play the rhythm on rhythm sticks.