The Beginning of the Singing Hound and A Hunting We Will Go

Many years ago, (more than I care to admit) I took a few courses at a local university in elementary music education. I really enjoyed the class material, my classmates and especially the instructor, Dr. Peggy Bennett. Through these classes I came to get to know Peggy, not just as my instructor, but as a colleague in music and more importantly as a friend. I was most impressed with her calm demeanor as she taught her classes. Not just us graduate students, but when working with young children. She has always had such a wonderful sense of working with children. At this writing, I can't even remember what her "method" of teaching music was called but today, after collaborating with other educators, she has developed the SongWorks approach. It has not changed much from the style I learned but seems to have grown into a more organized process. I recently purchased all of the books available on SongWorks and have been perusing through the material. Through this blog I hope to write about my experiences working with my classes using the SongWorks approach.

My first foray was using the song "A Hunting We Will Go". I had not played this game for a while and had forgotten how much the children have with such a simple song and game. I used this with a kindergarten class of about 15 students. I followed the script in the book as best as I could trying to use the same terminology. We made our circle, I sang through the song, asking questions about different parts of the song, adding hand movements when appropriate. Eventually we arrived at the part where we play the game. We had plenty of time and were able to let everyone have a turn being the hunter. The class really enjoyed the song and the game. Even if this were the only purpose of doing this song, it would have been well worth it to give the children a piece of joy in their day.