Little Owl_first day of teaching

Today is my first official day teaching at Little Owl Preschool and Elementary. I taught a lesson on singing solfege (do re mi fa so la ti do), using body movements. After I told the kids that I'm going to teach them to sing do re mi, one of the boys whined that they have learned it already. So I asked him to be patient with me, because it is probably something different from what he did before, because they get to move!



Upon hearing the word "move", they started getting excited. I showed them a print-out of this picture, and then demonstrated all 8 poses while singing the solfege names. They looked engaged~ They stood up and started following my movements before I asked them to. We went up and down the scale for a couple of times. Then I called out random names and asked them to do the movements. We went from the low do to high do a couple of times, and did it so quickly that made me start sweating! It was fun~ Then I asked each of them to choose a pose, and then we all sang the corresponding solfege names.

After doing that a few times, I gave them a sheet with the solfege positions in random order. I asked them to colour them, and then cut them out. Then they drew a ladder on half a sheet of construction paper, and put the solfege in order. This is the finished work of one of the kids~



It is challenging to teach kids that are under 5 years old, because their attention span is so short, and they are still learning how to behave in a social setting. One of the challenges is that it's summer right now, and they do have a lot of time to play. If they look at this place as a playplace, it is more difficult to get them to take the lessons seriously. Also, I am new to the school, and they're still getting to know me and testing limits. I hope that I'll be able to use music to engage them and have fun with them while learning with them!