Good morning and welcome to my presentation for the DMEA virtual conference day of 2021, “Over Twenty Reasons Why You Should Learn This Song And Share It With Your Students.”
Before we get started, thank you for visiting my blog. Please stop back and peruse my past posts as well as newer items as I post them here.
Just a few ground rules and a request. Have some paper and pencil handy for a participation segment that will be coming up in a few minutes. Also, this is copyrighted material and can't be reproduced or copied in any fashion for any media.
This is a story about songs, tricks, and the way simple concepts can empower a child and add value to their life.
The song I'm using for the first part of my presentation today is entitled “Going on a Picnic”.
Before we get started, thank you for visiting my blog. Please stop back and peruse my past posts as well as newer items as I post them here.
Just a few ground rules and a request. Have some paper and pencil handy for a participation segment that will be coming up in a few minutes. Also, this is copyrighted material and can't be reproduced or copied in any fashion for any media.
This is a story about songs, tricks, and the way simple concepts can empower a child and add value to their life.
The song I'm using for the first part of my presentation today is entitled “Going on a Picnic”.
Raffi popularized it in the 1980s. A number of other performers have included it on their CDs. Rafi is often attributed as the composer of this song while some people list it as ‘traditional’.
The actual composer is Lynn Freeman Olson. Olson was an American songwriter and composer who worked on kids’ TV in the 50s and 60s.
He was a staff composer on CBS's Captain Kangaroo show and has over 200 titles to his name.
As usual, with a lot of songs that I imported into my classes, I adapted and edited the lyrics and forms of this song.
The melody is a pretty straight ahead diatonic line with the only harmonic devices being a secondary dominant and a short ending in the relative minor. Easy peasy.
As far as presenting the song to the kids, I would often say something like “We're going to sing a song about a picnic! Let me spread out of picnic blanket and put my picnic basket on it.”
I would have the kids sit around the blanket or sheet. The basket would contain egg shakers that I would hand out to the kids who were sitting the smartest and who were the most attentive. I would literally say something like “Oh, aren't you sitting like a smart person, that must mean you would like to have something from Mr. Holmes' picnic basket. Let me get you an egg shaker.”
Or “Your eyes are watching my lips and we know that's the best way to learn the song so maybe I can give you something for my picnic basket since you're watching my lips so well.”
The part about the worms at the end gives the kids an opportunity to act like a grown-up and shake their finger while they yelling “No!"
I discovered the power of kids yelling ‘no’ years ago.
Back in my first year of teaching, I was working with a pre-K class and we were singing “She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain”.
I basically was trying to nail down the first verse with them and then improvise verses after that, like ‘she'll fly like a birdie when she comes’, ‘she’ll be hammering like a carpenter when she comes’, or ‘she'll swim like a guppy when she comes’.
The kids acted like each character as each verse changed.
In one class, just for fun, I improvised the prompt ‘she'll act like a teacher when she comes’. The kids were a little startled by that variation. They stopped, looked at each other, and then started stomping around the room with the meanest face they could make, shaking their fingers at each other.
They were having a blast being the teacher.
I thought “Oh no, I'm in real trouble now”.
The next verse was ‘And she'll be like Mr. Holmes when she comes’.
Thankfully, they all started to dance around playing air guitars and imaginary pianos with big smiles on their faces.
So the bit about the worms is to give them a little bit of empowerment.
License to yell “NO!” in the direction of a teacher is a gift most kids love.
And I demanded that they put some anger in their delivery.
I would admonish them to really lean in when they yelled ‘no’ and shake their finger at me for suggesting that they bring worms.
Back to the song.
I started by slowly singing the song the first time.
After the final ‘no’, I would go into the vamp to start the song over and we would sing the A section again to end the song.
After the first run through, I would make sure that the kids knew what some of the obscure food references were. With ‘radicchio”, I told them that when they were in their grocery store, they should go to the produce aisle and ask the produce manager “Where do you keep your radicchio?” and he’ll show them where it is and what it looks like.
After singing it a second time just a little bit faster with them, I started up the song third run through.
Right before the line ‘Did you bring the apples?’ call and answer, I would abruptly cut the guitar part and ask the class ‘What was the first thing I brought to the picnic?’
Many kids would remember it was apples so we would then sing the apple answer to my call.
Then I would ask what was next.
Many of them might remember ‘bananas’ while some might say ‘carrots’ and others ‘hot dogs’. I reminded them that it was bananas and we'd sing the banana call and respond.
After bananas, I would ask what what's next. At this point, there were lots of different answers. I would chide them with ‘But this is an easy song, you’re smart kids, you're telling me you can't remember what was next?’
There would be some complaining and a few pouty faces until I whispered ‘There's a secret to remembering the order of all the things in our picnic basket. First is . . . and they would say apples. Next is bananas, next is carrots, Devil Dogs . . .
I would accentuate the starting letter sound of each food item. Eventually, someone yelled ‘It's the alphabet!’
That would be followed by a lot of a ha moments and as well as the glow of mental light bulbs.
So I would start again
I would say A and everyone yelled apples.
B? Bananas!
C? Carrots!!
And when we got to W everybody yelled worms.
I told them that “This time when we sing it, lip sync my part on the question and if you can remember what the next item is, you just might be picked to be my helper.”
Now everyone was sitting at attention and staring at my lips, just the way I like it.
The third time we sang it, we were cruising in fifth gear –really moving!
After singing the song for the third time, we would go to ‘go’ time, take a little break, blow off pent-up energy, and move around.
When we came back on ‘stop’ time, I would say something on the order of “The alphabet can be a big helper in organizing what we know. Like names.
Who can yell out a boy's name that starts with A?
Adam! Alfonso! Anthony!
Then I'd interrupt and say “How about B?”
Brian! Bobby! Brahim!
And we would go through the alphabet just like that.
If they got stuck on some of the harder letters, I wouldn't dwell on it but rather move ahead to the next letter. After we finished on X with the boys names, I'd say “Wow, you got 24 out of 26 letters! That's expert territory! Let's do girls names!”
We were off and running.
A, B, C, all the way to the end of the alphabet.
“Let's do colors!”
A, B, C, all the way to the end.
“How about musical instruments!”
And suddenly things ground to a halt.
I would pantomime someone playing an accordion and a child would figure it out.
“B?”
Someone would tentatively say ‘Brass?’ and I would go out of my mind with happiness.
“You remembered brass!! From when we talked about the four different families of instruments? Brass, woodwind, strings, and percussion?? That's fantastic! Of course, we'll take brass as a good answer! But there is another B instrument, one that might be up on our wall.”
I would surreptitiously glance at a small bulletin board of instruments from the orchestra on our wall and the kids immediately started eyeballing it.
Bassoon, they would ask.
“You are correct!! Baboon! I mean bassoon!” which always drew some laughs.
“I mean a bassoon; yes that long, wooden double reed instrument that plays low sounds in the orchestra.”
How about if it this point, you take your pencil and down the left side of your paper, write the alphabet, and next to every letter, write the name of a musical instrument.
How did you do?
Back to our class.
After musical instruments, we would use the alphabet to find words that described how music made us feel.
Next, I would prompt them to find affirmations from the alphabet.
They knew I abhorred the over-used phrase ‘good job’.
“Let's find one that’s better than ‘good job’ and starts with the letter A. What's something nice we can say about someone's playing it starts with A?”
Awesome!
“How about B?”
Beautiful!
“C?”
They grew silent as the wheels were turning in their heads.
I would whisper ‘You know, it doesn't just have to be one word, it could be a phrase or a whole sentence, like ‘Can't believe how well your fingers went up and down on your recorder’”.
The last category I suggested was the culminating category.
“Let’s go A through Z and find a word that describes the way you want people to think about you.
This was the pay off.
The kids were taking a deep dive into their self-image, revealing how they wanted the world to see them, and saying it loud and proud to their classmates.
Sometimes, we would do the alphabet game and the categories would be very different. Superheroes, TV shows, books titles, names of teachers, cities around the world.
Here’s a special bonus for all you earnest professional music educators, your school’s resident music expert: a couple of extra categories just for you.
Remember, A through Z.
And if your boss isn't that hot, there's got to be somebody in admin that you can share a kind word with an encouraging short note.
My students will take this alphabet technique with them every time they codify or do a large-scale mental inventory till the day they die. They will see things and categorize ideas sometimes by the simple use of the alphabet.
My guess is that you will, too.
There are other codifying tools, too.
On another day, I explained to my classes that thousands of years ago, the first wheel it was actually a square block of stone that wouldn't roll and that it was only through persistent chipping away the rough spots that allowed it to roll.
“We are all like that square block and the best way to become well-rounded is to go to the library and read something in all the ‘numbers’”.
By “numbers”, I meant the numbers of the Dewey Decimal System.
Something from the 100s, from the 200s, from the 300s, etc.
For those of you who've forgotten the Dewey Decimal System classification, here it is:
000 Generalities
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Natural sciences & mathematics
600 Technology (Applied sciences)
700 The arts
800 Literature & rhetoric
900 Geography & history
I would tell the kids to go to a library and simply investigate different numbers, find a book that looked interesting, read it, and know that every time they read something from a new number, they were becoming smarter and more well-rounded.
A few months later, I would ask my classes which number was their favorite.
“7!! Especially 780!”
I smiled.
“Ahhh, all the paintings and pictures and music, right? Yes! Just remember, you have to keep up with ALL the numbers, just not your favorites. Otherwise, you won’t be well-rounded and Life will be a bumpy ride for you.”
The Important Part
If my classes didn’t include elements that were life-changing, I edited my lessons so some of that magic was always included. If what I presented wasn’t something that they could mentally carry with them away from school to their home life and enable their interactions with their world to be more prosperous and positive, I felt I was wasting their – and my – time.
This next part is what I consider the important part. That’s why I’m giving you fair warning up front.
It is so important that I am alerting you one more time.
Important stuff up ahead.
Here it comes.
Ready?
The value of what you provide has to be greater than the perceived cost of acquiring it or the potential downfall of not pursuing it.
It bears repeating.
The value of what you provide has to be greater than the perceived cost of acquiring it or the potential downfall of not pursuing it.
That goes for your students.
And your supervisors.
This alphabet trick allows us to not only know what we know, but also illuminates to us what we don’t know.
Have fun with these tricks.
Enjoy the song.
The numbers trick will open you and your student’s minds to paths of knowledge that we might never have pursued.
Modify and edit them to your own liking.
Add tangible value to your students’ lives.
Let me know how it works.
And please come back and visit me here at my blog.
The actual composer is Lynn Freeman Olson. Olson was an American songwriter and composer who worked on kids’ TV in the 50s and 60s.
He was a staff composer on CBS's Captain Kangaroo show and has over 200 titles to his name.
As usual, with a lot of songs that I imported into my classes, I adapted and edited the lyrics and forms of this song.
The melody is a pretty straight ahead diatonic line with the only harmonic devices being a secondary dominant and a short ending in the relative minor. Easy peasy.
As far as presenting the song to the kids, I would often say something like “We're going to sing a song about a picnic! Let me spread out of picnic blanket and put my picnic basket on it.”
I would have the kids sit around the blanket or sheet. The basket would contain egg shakers that I would hand out to the kids who were sitting the smartest and who were the most attentive. I would literally say something like “Oh, aren't you sitting like a smart person, that must mean you would like to have something from Mr. Holmes' picnic basket. Let me get you an egg shaker.”
Or “Your eyes are watching my lips and we know that's the best way to learn the song so maybe I can give you something for my picnic basket since you're watching my lips so well.”
The part about the worms at the end gives the kids an opportunity to act like a grown-up and shake their finger while they yelling “No!"
I discovered the power of kids yelling ‘no’ years ago.
Back in my first year of teaching, I was working with a pre-K class and we were singing “She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain”.
I basically was trying to nail down the first verse with them and then improvise verses after that, like ‘she'll fly like a birdie when she comes’, ‘she’ll be hammering like a carpenter when she comes’, or ‘she'll swim like a guppy when she comes’.
The kids acted like each character as each verse changed.
In one class, just for fun, I improvised the prompt ‘she'll act like a teacher when she comes’. The kids were a little startled by that variation. They stopped, looked at each other, and then started stomping around the room with the meanest face they could make, shaking their fingers at each other.
They were having a blast being the teacher.
I thought “Oh no, I'm in real trouble now”.
The next verse was ‘And she'll be like Mr. Holmes when she comes’.
Thankfully, they all started to dance around playing air guitars and imaginary pianos with big smiles on their faces.
So the bit about the worms is to give them a little bit of empowerment.
License to yell “NO!” in the direction of a teacher is a gift most kids love.
And I demanded that they put some anger in their delivery.
I would admonish them to really lean in when they yelled ‘no’ and shake their finger at me for suggesting that they bring worms.
Back to the song.
I started by slowly singing the song the first time.
After the final ‘no’, I would go into the vamp to start the song over and we would sing the A section again to end the song.
After the first run through, I would make sure that the kids knew what some of the obscure food references were. With ‘radicchio”, I told them that when they were in their grocery store, they should go to the produce aisle and ask the produce manager “Where do you keep your radicchio?” and he’ll show them where it is and what it looks like.
After singing it a second time just a little bit faster with them, I started up the song third run through.
Right before the line ‘Did you bring the apples?’ call and answer, I would abruptly cut the guitar part and ask the class ‘What was the first thing I brought to the picnic?’
Many kids would remember it was apples so we would then sing the apple answer to my call.
Then I would ask what was next.
Many of them might remember ‘bananas’ while some might say ‘carrots’ and others ‘hot dogs’. I reminded them that it was bananas and we'd sing the banana call and respond.
After bananas, I would ask what what's next. At this point, there were lots of different answers. I would chide them with ‘But this is an easy song, you’re smart kids, you're telling me you can't remember what was next?’
There would be some complaining and a few pouty faces until I whispered ‘There's a secret to remembering the order of all the things in our picnic basket. First is . . . and they would say apples. Next is bananas, next is carrots, Devil Dogs . . .
I would accentuate the starting letter sound of each food item. Eventually, someone yelled ‘It's the alphabet!’
That would be followed by a lot of a ha moments and as well as the glow of mental light bulbs.
So I would start again
I would say A and everyone yelled apples.
B? Bananas!
C? Carrots!!
And when we got to W everybody yelled worms.
I told them that “This time when we sing it, lip sync my part on the question and if you can remember what the next item is, you just might be picked to be my helper.”
Now everyone was sitting at attention and staring at my lips, just the way I like it.
The third time we sang it, we were cruising in fifth gear –really moving!
After singing the song for the third time, we would go to ‘go’ time, take a little break, blow off pent-up energy, and move around.
When we came back on ‘stop’ time, I would say something on the order of “The alphabet can be a big helper in organizing what we know. Like names.
Who can yell out a boy's name that starts with A?
Adam! Alfonso! Anthony!
Then I'd interrupt and say “How about B?”
Brian! Bobby! Brahim!
And we would go through the alphabet just like that.
If they got stuck on some of the harder letters, I wouldn't dwell on it but rather move ahead to the next letter. After we finished on X with the boys names, I'd say “Wow, you got 24 out of 26 letters! That's expert territory! Let's do girls names!”
We were off and running.
A, B, C, all the way to the end of the alphabet.
“Let's do colors!”
A, B, C, all the way to the end.
“How about musical instruments!”
And suddenly things ground to a halt.
I would pantomime someone playing an accordion and a child would figure it out.
“B?”
Someone would tentatively say ‘Brass?’ and I would go out of my mind with happiness.
“You remembered brass!! From when we talked about the four different families of instruments? Brass, woodwind, strings, and percussion?? That's fantastic! Of course, we'll take brass as a good answer! But there is another B instrument, one that might be up on our wall.”
I would surreptitiously glance at a small bulletin board of instruments from the orchestra on our wall and the kids immediately started eyeballing it.
Bassoon, they would ask.
“You are correct!! Baboon! I mean bassoon!” which always drew some laughs.
“I mean a bassoon; yes that long, wooden double reed instrument that plays low sounds in the orchestra.”
How about if it this point, you take your pencil and down the left side of your paper, write the alphabet, and next to every letter, write the name of a musical instrument.
How did you do?
Back to our class.
After musical instruments, we would use the alphabet to find words that described how music made us feel.
Next, I would prompt them to find affirmations from the alphabet.
They knew I abhorred the over-used phrase ‘good job’.
“Let's find one that’s better than ‘good job’ and starts with the letter A. What's something nice we can say about someone's playing it starts with A?”
Awesome!
“How about B?”
Beautiful!
“C?”
They grew silent as the wheels were turning in their heads.
I would whisper ‘You know, it doesn't just have to be one word, it could be a phrase or a whole sentence, like ‘Can't believe how well your fingers went up and down on your recorder’”.
The last category I suggested was the culminating category.
“Let’s go A through Z and find a word that describes the way you want people to think about you.
This was the pay off.
The kids were taking a deep dive into their self-image, revealing how they wanted the world to see them, and saying it loud and proud to their classmates.
Sometimes, we would do the alphabet game and the categories would be very different. Superheroes, TV shows, books titles, names of teachers, cities around the world.
Here’s a special bonus for all you earnest professional music educators, your school’s resident music expert: a couple of extra categories just for you.
Remember, A through Z.
- Composers.
- Living composers.
- Women composers.
- A job you would do if you couldn't be a music teacher.
- A job you would really not want to do if you couldn't be a music teacher.
- Tempo and dynamic markings.
- A word that describes how you want your students to remember you.
- Reasons why you should learn this song and share it with your students.
- Affirmations you can share in a short note to your boss about what a great job they're doing.
- Affirmations to your boss's boss to let them know how well your boss is doing.
And if your boss isn't that hot, there's got to be somebody in admin that you can share a kind word with an encouraging short note.
My students will take this alphabet technique with them every time they codify or do a large-scale mental inventory till the day they die. They will see things and categorize ideas sometimes by the simple use of the alphabet.
My guess is that you will, too.
There are other codifying tools, too.
On another day, I explained to my classes that thousands of years ago, the first wheel it was actually a square block of stone that wouldn't roll and that it was only through persistent chipping away the rough spots that allowed it to roll.
“We are all like that square block and the best way to become well-rounded is to go to the library and read something in all the ‘numbers’”.
By “numbers”, I meant the numbers of the Dewey Decimal System.
Something from the 100s, from the 200s, from the 300s, etc.
For those of you who've forgotten the Dewey Decimal System classification, here it is:
000 Generalities
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Natural sciences & mathematics
600 Technology (Applied sciences)
700 The arts
800 Literature & rhetoric
900 Geography & history
I would tell the kids to go to a library and simply investigate different numbers, find a book that looked interesting, read it, and know that every time they read something from a new number, they were becoming smarter and more well-rounded.
A few months later, I would ask my classes which number was their favorite.
“7!! Especially 780!”
I smiled.
“Ahhh, all the paintings and pictures and music, right? Yes! Just remember, you have to keep up with ALL the numbers, just not your favorites. Otherwise, you won’t be well-rounded and Life will be a bumpy ride for you.”
The Important Part
If my classes didn’t include elements that were life-changing, I edited my lessons so some of that magic was always included. If what I presented wasn’t something that they could mentally carry with them away from school to their home life and enable their interactions with their world to be more prosperous and positive, I felt I was wasting their – and my – time.
This next part is what I consider the important part. That’s why I’m giving you fair warning up front.
It is so important that I am alerting you one more time.
Important stuff up ahead.
Here it comes.
Ready?
The value of what you provide has to be greater than the perceived cost of acquiring it or the potential downfall of not pursuing it.
It bears repeating.
The value of what you provide has to be greater than the perceived cost of acquiring it or the potential downfall of not pursuing it.
That goes for your students.
And your supervisors.
This alphabet trick allows us to not only know what we know, but also illuminates to us what we don’t know.
Have fun with these tricks.
Enjoy the song.
The numbers trick will open you and your student’s minds to paths of knowledge that we might never have pursued.
Modify and edit them to your own liking.
Add tangible value to your students’ lives.
Let me know how it works.
And please come back and visit me here at my blog.
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