A Hunting We will Go Song maps and SmartBoard

Back to "A Hunting We will Go"...I neglected to mention that before my students ever put their map on paper and tried to follow it, I used the SmartBoard to draw my map. Of course Kindergarten was most impressed! Going on now- The class sang for me as I drew my map and then followed my map. I followed it too fast, too slow and finally, they decided that I needed to go just the right speed to get to the end of my map when the song finished. We talked about the beginning and the end of the song and how I knew where it was. The "X" was my beginning and where the line stopped was the end. The class traced my map in the air while we sang it again making sure to stop our finger at the end. We also used the SmartBoard map to find different places in the song like "fox", "box" and "go" marking over these places darker. We talked about the rhyming words of fox and box. My SmartBoard lesson had a page where they could drag the fox into the box.

The SmartBoard has become for me what a felt board or poster paper was for teachers in the past. I like to be able to take what I've done before and use the new tools that I have in the classroom. The SmartBoard is a lot of fun and students love to touch it and manipulate the pictures.

The students enjoyed this lesson. They love the song, they love the game, they liked the SmartBoard map, they enjoyed every aspect of the song. Who would have guessed that it would be so fascinating but there are so many things to find and discuss in just this one song. That was always the beauty of the early Song Works ideas. Simple songs that offer so many things to learn inside of them. There are layers and layers to unfold and see what lies beneath. It is amazing how many things you can do with one song. I think about that we haven't even begun to consider the melody or the rhythm. Many layers, one song.

A Hunting We Will Go Part 2- moving to a map

The continuing of "A Hunting We Will Go" activity:

First let me mention that I see my kindergarten class once a week for 45 minutes. Sometimes I know that I do more than I should in a class period but I try to plant little seeds as much as possible. Hopefully those small tidbits will be remembered and we can build on them.

So after we played the game I asked my students to pick a hand and we put a "fox" on our finger. Then we let the fox dance in the air while we sang the song. We did this a number of times making certain that we switched our hands and picked our favorite hand to use. We always made an "X" to start and we made sure to stop our fox at the end of the song. We talked about that the song had a beginning and an end.

Eventually we took our air map and put it on the floor in front of us. We were careful not to let our fox go in front of our neighbor. Again, we did this many times, switching hands, drawing an "X", and making sure to stop at the end.

I believe that I should have stopped at this point and not gone to a paper map but we did move on. I know that a paper map should really come after the children have had many experiences of just singing and drawing imaginary maps in the air and on the floor. It probably would have made the paper map experience better. But- on to the paper. Each child got a piece of paper. We drew an imaginary X, and then did our map on just the paper as we did in the air but keeping our fox only on our paper. The children were very good about following all the directions. Very eager to do whatever came next. I also passed out markers and we went through the whole process with a marker. Drawing our map and then following what we drew with our finger.

This was an interesting point. I am always curious to see if they are able to follow their map and start and stop. It usually doesn't work. But for first experiences I do not expect them to be able to do this. Nor would I expect until after many experiences of drawing and following. All that I have explained was done over two class sessions. I did not use the entire class time on just this song/game. I had other activities planned. We also do a listening part, listening to our "composer of the day" and we did another song not related to the SongWorks program.

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.