Speak directions in a meter while the class pats a steady beat. One way to keep students engaged as we give directions is to continue the musical meter and tone set from the previous activity. If you’re new to transitions and just looking for an easy way to start, here are a few ideas: Musical Directions They’re by far the most used in my teaching because of how many procedural or logistic steps we have in a single lesson. These are used especially when students are moving from one location to the other (like lining up, moving to instruments, getting manipulatives, things like that). I refer to these as “drag-and-drop” transitions because they don’t require any additional planning! Today we’ll look at the zoomed-in view, connecting individual segments of a lesson together. These transitions help the lesson move smoothly between learning experiences. We might also be looking at a zoomed-in transition that connects individual lesson segments together. These transitions help students recall information over multiple classes. When we think about transitions in elementary general music, might be looking at a zoomed-out view that helps students move into the music classroom itself, and connect several different lessons together over a period of several weeks. Types of Transitions in Elementary General Music Transitions work overtime as a way to gamify the lesson, keep students engaged, keep the classroom running smoothly, keep the pacing of the lesson upbeat, and give more opportunities to music - instead of talking about music. Since many transitions use the application of knowledge in a new setting - in a transition - these connecting pieces actually can serve a practical assessment purpose as well. Transitions also give us information about how students are processes the musical information. Students are making music or thinking musically the whole time. With thoughtful transitions, we don’t have to constantly stop and start the lesson to introduce a song or explain directions or to pass out instruments or with their shoulder partner - we just flow into the next activity. My Kodaly level 1 teacher, Karen Shuford, commented that “Most of the lesson should be spent experiencing music, not talking about it.” Transitions are a beautiful way to use as much musicing as possible in an active music curriculum. Thoughtful transitions help us prepare for where the lesson may get stuck, and how we’ll help keep the pacing upbeat. These processes can slow down the lesson pacing if we don’t think through how we can guide the students’ experience between activities. Often, we can find ourselves taking longer than we expected to set up games, pass out instruments, and move between songs. When we think through our transitions, we’re less likely to get bogged down in the logistics of the lesson. When we think intentionally about transitions, we’re in a better place to guide student behavior so our musicians stay on task. Our students are active! Instead of working against their natural desire for activity, how can we create more opportunities for engagement? How can we keep high expectations for their behavior, while being developmentally appropriate, and while moving the curriculum forward? How can we use their natural desire for activity as a way to further musical learning?
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