Teaching when Half the Class is Missing

 
 

When students are out of class, it can be tricky to know how to plan lessons. How can we serve the students in the classroom while leaving space for the musicians who are absent?

If music class is fun - if it feels like child’s play - it’s okay to go back and play games again. You feel tired of these songs faster than students do - good to keep in mind they need more exposure to a song to internalize it than you do as a trained musician, and they have a full week break between hearing the song, and they probably have more of a week break.

You can repeat lessons.

Camp out and go deeper into a concept instead of skimming the surface of a concept.

This is the time for small group work if that’s feasible given your physical restrictions. This is a time for songs that align with books. This is the time for a review project. This is a time to make videos of kids teaching so you can watch it in the next class. These students teach the class next time.

With the same core lesson:

Warm Up:

  • Core Lesson:

    • Sing greetings using the melodic toneset and rhythmic set you’ve picked out

  • Extend:

    • Improvise question and answer with the toneset and rhythmic set (teacher vs class)

    • Students turn to a partner and improvise with the toneset. Switch partners as time allows.

High Concentration and Secondary Concentration

  • Core Lesson:

    • Sing and play game

    • Do the core learning activity

  • Extend:

    • Review the previous class by having students turn to their shoulder partner and discuss what they did last time

    • Review the previous class by having a few students come to the front and give the presentation lesson

    • More time playing instruments

      • Add a bordun or play a different bordun

      • Play the melody or a portion of the melody by ear

      • Play an ostinato on unpitched percussion

      • With pop music playing, echo four or eight-beat rhythms on unpitched percussion using the target rhythmic element

    • Melodic and rhythmic dictation

      • In graphic notation

      • In standard western notation

      • Using manipulatives

    • Song connections to picture books

    • Improvise and arrange:

      • Keep the same rhythm but create a new melody with a partner at a barred instrument

      • Create an ostinato using thematic words from the song

      • In a small group, create a new version of a passing game

      • Assign a different unpitched percussion instrument to each line of the song

      • Improvise a new ending or fill in missing measures

Change of Pace

  • Learn a new dance

  • Move to pop music

  • Students choose a known game from a list on the board. Use the second class choice as a closing activity

Closing

  • Students choose the closing song

  • Review

  • Review and explain to a shoulder partner

  • Review and video a student explaining the key concepts of the lesson to show next class or put on Seesaw

Program Advocacy and Quality Time

Seesaw videos for students to watch at home

  • Part of the informance preparation process, but also makes for a convenient advocacy piece and a review opportunity

Small class sizes are a blessing. When I was in early elementary school, one of my aunts would take all the cousins on individual dates. As someone whose love language is quality time, this was a huge win for me, especially because I’m from a big family and quality time with adults was pretty rare.

So what if this is quality time with a smaller group of students than we normally see?