will you wear white, jenny jenkins? > i am wearing white, white, white

on monday, while my students enjoyed a day off, i had to go to a day-long lecture about using music in the classroom.  i actually learned some good things:

- when teaching a new song, a really effective way to help them learn is to sing it to them, in full, while they listen and do some kind of simple movement/finger play.

- if a song is coupled with movement, teach the movement first and, while they learn the moves, sing the song each time.  they will pick it up faster than if you did it call/response line by line.

- when keeping a beat, it is easiest for kids to maintain it by tapping on themselves or on the floor; however, the tapping must be on anything but their shoulders - somehow, that is harder for them than even walking on the beat (something to do with the angle.  try tapping your shoulders right now, with your right hand tapping your right shoulder - it's actually harder than it sounds).

- when using songs to practice things LIKE keeping the beat, go ahead and use good songs (classical, folk songs, etc.).  they can do "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" to a recording of "in the hall of the mountain king" just as easily as to a cheesy, childish tune.

- when it's the kids' time to sing, DO NOT SING WITH THEM.  they are expert echo-ers, and can do it in a split second, but they won't retain the music if you always sing along with them.  call and response is fine, but describe it to them like talking: they are not supposed to talk while you are talking, so they are not supposed to sing while you are singing!

- when selecting songs to use in the classroom, pick songs you like.  you are going to be stuck with them all year, so don't pick stuff just because "you think the kids might like this kind of thing."  if you would get bored of it after 30 days, ditch it.  Example: "will you wear white, oh my dear, oh my dear, will you wear white, jenny jenkins?  no, i won't wear white 'cause the color's too bright, i'll buy me a fol-de-rol-dy-tiddle-le-ol-dy seek-a-double, use-a-cause-a, roll-a-find-me, roll, jenny jenkins, roll" is much more fun than "i am wearing white, white, white, and you are wearing white, white, white, and we are wearing white, white, white, so the color we love is white, white white."  ick.

the speaker also made some semi-crazy and even controversial points (there was a heated debate over the benefits v. costs of using silly songs like the hokey pokey in the classroom, believe it or not) but i thought that the general points he made (that i listed above) made good sense.  i am committing them to memory for when i teach new songs to my kids.