October is here!

My second lesson was so fun! Since Halloween is coming up so soon, the lesson was exclusively fall themed.

I started off by teaching the children the song “October is here!” Once they had become pro’s, they came up with dance movies to use during each section of the song. We labeled this section “A”. We then learned this song in a round- first the class was divided into two group, then we went up to four. They nailed the two-part cannon, however I discovered four parts became a little too tricky for them. The two-part round was more their speed.

            Anyway, the students then listed everything they could think of relating to the fall season. We had a board full of words like cider, dressing up in costumes, homemade doughnuts, pumpkin carving, and other things like that. The class then developed a rhythmic chant using some of those words. It was super helpful that our last lesson let them experience the difference between beat and rhythm, so before we started creating our own chants we had a little review session! After we came up with a chant as a class, the students were all split into groups to make up their own rhythmic chant. We labeled these sections “B” and “C” respectively.

            Our final song incorporated all of these sections together! It was so fun watching them perform it. They were all very proud of their group’s chants. This lesson was a great way to introduce to them the basic ideas of musical form, as well as giving them a chance to feel like songwriters. All in all, it was a blast!