My Lesson Plan

I've been up all night working on an assignment for my Music for Elementary Education class. We were instructed to create a homemade instrument and identify how we can use that instrument to teach or reinforce one or more concepts from our content area. Since this is an education class most of the students have a specific content area, but i'm simply here for fun (or maybe because i need the extra credit and hours to graduate) so i get to choose which subject i would like to teach.

The whole point of this class is to teach/inform (future) teachers how they can use music in their (math, reading, science, history) lessons and activities. I've really been amazed at all that i'm learning in this class - it's exciting!

I've told you many many times that i really love to plan, organize, and make lists... well this activity has been right up my alley. We have to write out a lesson plan and pretty much act as if we were getting up to teach this tomorrow. I'm more excited about working by myself and creating this lesson rather than (pulling it off) or teaching it.

I decided to take the song 'The Ants Go Marching' and try to incorporate a math lesson for Kindergarteners. The student will be expected to count from 1-20. We'll be doing it through this song which means they have no time to hesitate because there will be a steady beat. Did you catch the musical element in there?

We'll have a brief ART activity and create a homemade instrument (i chose to create a tambourine, but you can do anything simple for your students- like egg shakers = marraccas). After that you will start singing the song and the 'ants' (your students) will march around the room keeping the beat with their instruments.

The ants go marching one by one hooray hooray....

The students will add a student each time/verse (starting off with one) so that the number of ‘ants’ marching corresponds with the song. You will continue until all the 'ants' in your class are involved and marching.

Most classrooms have about 20 students which means by the end of the song your students will have successfully counted from 1 to 20.

We (especially children) learn by seeing, hearing, and moving. That's why a lot of preschool and kindergarten activities are hands-on. This lesson incorporates all three of those - which according to my professor is what we are going for. They are hearing -singing the song and counting outloud, seeing - 1 ant 2 ants 3 ants, and moving - marching around the room while keeping the beat.

You can also use this song (in a music classroom) to teach your students what a REST is. 'The ants go marching one by one hooray hooray, the ants go marching one by one hooray hooray, the ants go marching one by one the little one STOPS to suck his thumb, rest rest rest rest, and they all go marching down around the town....' Obviously you would tell your students to be silent and stop playing their instruments in order to show them exactly what a rest is.

Or for another option you can use this for a reading lesson. Your student could be expected to read and recognize rhyming words. You could even have them come up with their own rhyming words. One - thumb. Two - shoe. Three - tree. And on.

It'd be so cool if you could have the same theme through each lesson.... kind of like we did here. We had art, music, math, and reading. You use one song, activity, or theme the whole day to reinforce what you are wanting your kids to learn. Now that is beauty right there! I love details and connections and organization and .... ahh!

I've never made a lesson plan before, i've never had to be creative and come up with something like this, i've never been trained or had an education class to learn exactly how to do these things, and i'm pretty nervous to see if i even did it correct or pulled it off the way he wants. Breathe!

My goodness that was one big, long run-on sentence.

Guess we'll find out!