Mindmap/Rehearsal Plan 4/1/2015

Week Six: Haslett Middle School, 7th Grade

Today was my sixth observation of Mrs. Valla's seventh grade choir, and it was a wonderful learning experience! The students were going to Festival right after class, so it was a pretty exciting day. I finally had the chance to work with the students a bit. We had limited time because the class had to prepare to leave for Festival, but I was able to do a quick body warm-up exercise with the students. We started by shaking out our arms and legs for counts of 8 down to 1, and the students seemed to be really into it! I heard one of them say "Ohh we did this in gym class!" As I looked around the room, it appeared that everyone was participating enthusiastically. I tried to give instructions with as few words as possible, and I think that really helped to keep them engaged. Afterwards, we did some stretching and got into a good singer's stance for the rest of the warm-up led by Mrs. Valla.  The class then sang through their two festival pieces, and they sounded great! It was really inspiring to see middle schoolers so excited and focused for Festival. I look forward to having the opportunity to work with the students more next week!

Week Five: Haslett Middle School, 7th Grade

This past week I had my fifth observation of Mrs. Valla's seventh grade choir.  Since the school had their choir concert that evening I was unable to do a teaching exercise with the class, but it was really cool to watch the students prepare for their program!

The class met in the high school auditorium to get used to singing in the space before concert time, so the students were pretty keyed up with excitement at the beginning of rehearsal.  Mrs. Valla pulled them into focus right away, though. Each week I am so fascinated by her classroom management skills - she doesn't allow for any wasted time. Moving right along between exercises without breaks means no room for talking or fooling around!

One of the warm up exercises really stuck out in my mind - the students sang "I love to sing" (do-mi-sol-do-sol-mi-do) and were having a difficult time projecting their sound in such a large auditorium, because it's not the space that they're used to.  Mrs. Valla instructed the students to aim their sound to the back of the aud.  This helped the singers to focus their sound and had them singing more on their breath.  Mrs. Valla didn't need to give a ton of instructions or talk a lot, it was just one simple, to-the-point request that was effective.

The class ran their repertoire, stopping only in between pieces to work a few things.  The music is memorized for the concert, which appears to have the students more engaged and focused on the conductor (because they're not buried in their music).  One thing that I've noticed in all my observations is that Mrs. Valla is constantly modeling for her students, portraying good diction, tone, energy, etc, and their sound pretty much always improves when she does this.  She also commented before rehearsing one of the pieces, "Think about how much energy you have to employ." This was a great reminder for the students - short and to-the-point, it had them standing up taller and using their breath more efficiently.

This was a very informative observation for me, and I look forward to having the opportunity to work with the students a bit next week!  



  

Sight Singing Exercise

Week 4: Haslett Middle School, 7th Grade

This week I had my fourth observation of Mrs. Valla's seventh grade choir.  This was an interesting class to observe, as it was "Job Day" for the high school students.  In other words, some of the choir students from the high school were shadowing Mrs. Valla for the day.  It was really cool to see the high school and middle school students interact with each other.  It seemed to me that the middle school kids were trying really hard to impress the high school students - they sat up straighter, they were more active in making the solfege hand signs, they sang on their breath more, etc.  The high school students sang through a 4-part sight singing example, and the middle schoolers were SO fascinated by this...they really lit up and went wild with excitement over what to expect in high school choir.  It was truly inspiring to observe this!  The seventh graders then sang through one of their pieces for the high school kids, and then the high schoolers provided some positive feedback before Mrs. Valla worked on some things in the music.  Mrs. Valla agreed with and reiterated many of the things that the high school students offered up, and I think that it was really beneficial for the seventh graders to hear some constructive criticism from "cool high school kids." The seventh graders have about two weeks until they perform their spring concert, and the music is sounding really great! It is truly a joy to watch these students grow and learn each week, and I look forward to having the opportunity to work with them a little bit when I return from spring break!