Lockdown again? If you’ve been teaching on-line, nothing much has changed. If you’ve been teaching in a classroom, with children in front of you —everything just changed again. The good news is, music includes singing with the kids at home! Choose 3 or 4 songvideos, introduce them during on-line time and challenge students to be ready to sing by heart (without the words or music) for the next on-line music time.
Memorizing exercises the brain, aids in development of neural pathways … music memory includes both sides of the brain working language and math basics. If students aren’t used to memory work, it will be a real challenge in the beginning, but it does get easier with practice.
When students have learned a song by heart, in the next on-line music time, try the radio game.
Radio Game: students/mp3 are the radio, begin with both playing/singing … partway through, turn the radio off with a hand sign (turn down the volume on the mp3) … after 10-15 seconds, turn the radio/singing back on. Since the radio station continued to play the song when your radio was off, the music picks up further along than it stopped. If students have internalized the beat of the song, they will pick up singing at the correct place. Since students are singing at home, they can enjoy their success, or wince at failure to keep the beat without worrying about an audience.