Year 3
Autumn Week 5
Learning a new pitch-name!
The children pile into the room at 2.30 carrying their book bags and coats ready for home time. They all look like they are ready to go home themselves. Every teacher knows that the morning sessions are always more settled and that the ability to concentrate on adult-directed activities drifts away as the day progresses. This particular class find it hard to engage with a directed activity at any time of day.
I know it’s going to be difficult to find moments of meaningful progress and understanding in the next 40 minutes or so.
We start with everyone standing up and I sing “Hello Everyone” (G-A-GG-E). I show the class some actions that indicate the pitch of what I’m singing (shoulders/head/shoulders-shoulders/hips). I ask them to watch me and then, afterwards, repeat my singing and actions. Invariably a lot join in with me at first and then they get used to waiting and replying afterwards. After a few tries a little over half the class are joining in. It’s hard to work out whether the ones not joining in are incapable of doing this or just that they don’t want to, or perhaps they do not understand the instructions. I ask what our actions are showing and one girl says it shows the pitch. She’s right.
The lesson, by this point about 5 or 6 minutes old, has already been peppered with children calling out, poking each other, moving from one seated position to another and so on. One child makes it his business to distract everyone around him continually. Perhaps it would have been better to start with something much more lively? It’s always hard to tell how best to play the start of a lesson.
I ask the class what song starts with this melody shape i.e. I hum G-A-G-E. It is recognised as the start of Star Light, Star Bright and we sing this together. We form a circle and play the game that goes with this song quite a few times. It gives one person the chance to walk around the inside of the circle tapping each person’s hand to the beat and also there is the opportunity for someone else to sing solo. I make some notes, jotting down who can keep the beat on the move in this way and also which children can sing on their own at the pitch of the song. It is only a few who can do so, many sing below the pitch.
We sit down together and I ask the class to sing the song and clap the rhythm. Nearly the whole class do so, only one or two accidentally clap the beat. We break it down and work out the rhythm names of each phrase (that is: using ‘ta’ for a crotchet and ‘ti-ti’ for a quaver). The class enjoy singing the song in rhythm names.
I ask if there are any other songs that have the G-A-G-E tune to start with? Someone recognises this as the start of Bounce High. We sing it and clap the rhythm and, as before, the class helps me to write out the rhythm with rhythm sticks on the board. I ask them to show the pitch of this song on their heads/shoulders/hips as before. I do it as well to guide them. I ask them if the second pitch is higher or lower than the first. We do the actions again but most don’t recognise that these actions reveal the answer. Eventually someone says it is higher. I go back to the written rhythm and write an ‘s’ for ‘so’ beneath the first stick. At this point the lesson is technical and by no means is everyone paying close attention. Nonetheless when I manage to elicit from those who are paying attention that there is a mysterious new pitch-name to learn then nearly everyone watches me closely. I sing the song again including the new pitch name ‘la’ and the accompanying handsign. This causes much interest and various attempts at making the ‘la’ hand sign. One child says “I knew that because my sister told me”. We sing it through with the new handsign. It is a novelty and the class seem to enjoy it.
We finish back on our feet again as I remind them of some partner-actions that we can do with the song Hot Cross Buns. It’s a fun, lively activity to end with. Like the actions at the start of the lesson these also indicate the pitch. I tell the class that their challenge for the week is to sing Hot Cross Buns and do these actions with partners. And then they all leave for home.