On Friday’s class, Madi, Jess, Katie, Emma, and I taught a lesson to our year two cohort. We sought to create a co-equal lesson that combined aspects of physical education (movement) and music aimed for Grade 2 students. Specifically, we attempted to create a lesson that would have students leave with an understanding of the value of a quarter, half, dotted half, and whole note as well as a quarter rest. We also worked to reinforce the students’ understanding of the fundamental movement skills; precisely we sought to reinforce the technique for static balances, axial movements and jumping. We wished to complete this lesson by teaching the students the song “You Are My Sunshine.” Students we tasked with learning the various notes within the song (as mentioned above) as well as the various fundamental movement skills we chose to pair with each note. A quarter note was represented by a high knee, a half note was symbolized by a jump, a dotted half note was demonstrated by a static balance, and finally, a whole note was shown by completing two axial rotations. A quarter rest was represented by a rest position – hands shoulder-width apart, arms open up in a rainbow at the elbow.
One large piece of the lesson that I look back on and wish I could change was the way we planned out the final line of “You Are My Sunshine.” This final line of this song begins with a half rest; however, our group found that the music video we used did not have a full half rest. We made the decision to change this bar to a quarter rest and two quarters as opposed to the original – a half rest and two quarter notes. Although looking back on the lesson and listening to the song again, it is clear that a quarter rest was not the best decision either. The quarter rest was too short and had the participants rushing through the final line.
Our group felt that “learning takes time and patience” was the First People’s Principles of Learning that best fit with our lesson. Throughout our lesson, we tried our best to ensure that all students had a solid understanding of the content before moving on to the next piece of the lesson. The song we chose incorporated a great deal of repetition into our lesson which overall assisted students in their understanding; a concept that may have been unclear may begin to make more sense as you continue to familiarize yourself with the movement.
As for my participation in the assignment. I feel that I did well in supporting my team as we created our lesson. I personally worked diligently on decided which movements would be both appropriate for the grade level as well as meaningful and purposeful; this is where we decided to incorporate fundamental movement skills. Overall, I am thankful to have had the chance to work with such an incredible group of hardworking individuals.