For the 5th grade lesson on Thursday (9/4) with Mr. Weil, our main focus was to introduce tonguing! Take a quick look at my lesson plan before continuing on:

Weil 5th grade 9-4

For a majority of the class time, we quickly reviewed everything they’ve learned in #1-10 (the first two page of the Standard of Excellence Book 1). With only the last 10 minutes of class to spare, we completed a repeat-after-me exercise where I (the teacher) would sing/whisper half notes and quarter notes on the syllable tu, and would have the students mimic exactly what I did, whether it be singing or whispering. Following that, we connected our singing/whispering activity to just tonguing air in their instruments, leading into reviewing #11 (playing half notes tongued). Two of the three elementary schools did fairly decent in grasping the concept so quickly, but our last elementary school seemed to struggle with it more. I immediately picked up a lack of air support in the flute section, forcing me to switch around my original lesson plan done with the other two schools and do a short lesson over the difference between “tummy air” and “chest air”. Thankfully, towards the end of class, the students were getting the hang of breathing properly. Once again, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post on a day prior to this, the situation I faced at our last elementary school of the day brought up a great learning experience that a lot of teachers face on a daily basis. Ending the day on that note, overall, I’d say it was fairly decent Thursday! Feel free to take a look at my video from the last class of the day and decide for yourself if I succeeded in a spur-of-the-moment lesson.

*Due to the safety and privacy of previous students, all photographs and video recordings have been graciously taken down as of August 4th, 2015. Please contact the creator personally to grant access if desired to view independently.*

Title of Video: Student Teaching w/ Weil (9/4)