Wow. I completely underplanned for the Kindergarten and First Grade today. It was painful. Worse yet, was that the PTO President was my helper for the day.
I was pulling activities out of thin air and making up games on the spot. Breaking a string on my guitar wasn't helpful either...
On a positive note, the 4th grade lesson was amazing, if I do say so myself. :) We defined terms for the quiz next week, and in doing so introduced the concept of bar lines, measures, time signatures and beat, and how they all work together cohesively to create order in music.
This was my analogy:
Our homes are not built like gymnasiums. We have walls that divide the space into rooms. The walls are not the room itself, instead they separate the space into rooms. The room is the space inside the walls.
Music has walls that divide it also. The walls are called bar lines. They divide the music into measures. The measure is the space inside/between the bar lines.
Analogy again: Your parents set the rules as far as how many people live in each bedroom.
In music, the parent is called a time signature. It tells us how many beats are allowed in each room, or each measure. The music must follow the rule of the time signature.
We then went on to compose measures of rhythm using whole notes, half notes and quarter notes. I think they got it! At the same time, it also helps immensely that I have already taught the lesson several times and finally have worked the kinks out. Sometimes I wish I could have a do-over with the first class.
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