2ND practicum START!!

Hi fellow classmates in mid-town, hope you are doing well in your 2nd practicum!!

I was still pretty nervous and excited about this practicum. I'm now teaching kindergarden kids to grade 3s and also the intermediate students (7 &8s). A big gap I know, but I'm really glad I get to teach the primary grades as well for music rotary, because this is what a music teacher get in real situations. My AT had to teach the whole school last year including the junior grades 4-6s. She was really exhausted being the only music teacher in the school with occasional itinerant music teachers.

Anyways, I finally get to meet Mr. So-Mi, a puppet bear for the primary students that my AT uses. (some of the intermediate students told me that they've known Mr. So-Mi for all their lives since their kindergarden days, and they missed Mr. So-Mi.)
but ... Mr.So-Mi wasn't in good condition, because his magical hat was about to fall off and his shirt was party ripped :( . My AT has been so busy that she forgot to take him home, so I decided to do a little repair and sew the parts together.

During this first week of practicum, I taught a few grade 1 classes and played the "Rhythmic Chair"(that we learned from Alison) with them. The grade 1s loved the game, and I can see modifying the activity for other grades as well. This game works really well with teaching them about rhythm and notation.

I'm really glad and learned a lot about teaching primary and junior students from Alison's classes. I've adapted her activities for my grade 7 &8 unit plan on music used in movies.
Since I had to teach all the grade 7s and 8s (total of 8 different classes, each has their own characteristics) . I kept the lessons the same. So far the lessons went well and they enjoyed the listening activities. But so far my biggest concern and fear is the classroom management issues with the Intermediate students. For most of the classes, this week was my first time meeting them, because I only see each class once a week. Some classes were very nice but some were very chatty and rude. I find overall, their attention span is short, so I tried to make sure I play lots of film music that interests them and gets their attention.


Friday ended with a high-note: the primary K-3 students had Dance-a-thon in the morning. I watch the entire "show". The kids had a great time... and of course in the end, they all sang to Justin Bieber's Baby song !