- What kinds of musicking were going on in this environment? What did the children’s play look like and sound like? What “I can” statements might a teacher write after observing the children’s musical skills?
The children were singing to every activity that they did. They were singing multiple rhythms and melodies that were made up with no guidance except for one of the chants that the teacher had sang. Even when some of the kids were playing by themselves, they were singing to themselves. Their chants and songs included melodies with seconds, thirds, broken triads, and leaps of fifths. The children’s rhythms included quarter notes, eighth notes, and even some syncopation and triplets.
There were many different ways that the children’s play looked and sounded like. For example, some of the girls were playing pet store and they were imitating rhythms and melodies from the Pocahontas song. They also used some of the same words. Another one of the children was playing by himself and he chanted a song about wheel-rolling on a sol-mi pattern. The teacher was picking green beans one morning and she chanted a small phrase where some of the children were with her. The children chanted their own phrase using different rhythms, but the same notes that the teacher used. The children made up their own songs at the sandbox reiterating what they were doing in the sandbox. Even at lunch time, the students were making up songs and replacing the ending tag that they had made up.
Some “I can” statements that a teacher might write may be:
- I can make up my own songs
- I can choose my own words
- I can use the teachers notes to make my own song
- After reading about the Lakeshore Zebras’ informal musical experiences, think about young children you know or have seen at your internship placement or elsewhere in your life? How might you interact with children to keep their musical selves active and lively?
A way I might interact with children to keep their musical selves active and lively would be what the teacher in the Lakeshore Zebras’ did. I could sing a small chant with my own notes and words and see how the children pick it up and adapt it. I could also sing songs that they know with my own words so that they know that can make up their own words to different songs. Since I already sing any activity I am doing, I could sing certain activities making up my own rhythms and melodies so that the children could do the same. Like in the reading, the children were already singing and chanting their activities.
- During the second reading, think about how the author is writing this. How has she put this together? Besides the children, what does she describe? How does she help you “get a picture of” or “get a feeling for” this setting and these children? What three “tips” might you pick up from her that you could use when writing your ethnography assignments?
She started off by describing the community and the history of the Lakeshore Child Development Center. The author gives numbers of how much it would cost to go there and how much the families make. She also sets the stage by describing how the LCDC looks like, the age group names, and where each age group is located. She then goes on describing the room and the children in the room. She gives an imagery of the room and where certain objects are located. She gives in depth details about anything she is describing so that we are in the story with her. She starts off with her first day in the classroom and how the children reacted with her being there. After the children had gone off with their normal day, she explains various activities that the children were doing. She even included dialogue, written out music, and with those she had a short description of what the children were doing in those instances. At the end of her writing, she sums up what she wrote about and discussing what exactly the children were doing without even realizing it. She also includes some of her thoughts. Three tips that I could use that could help me when writing my ethnography assignments would be giving detailed imagery, having written out examples of certain phrases, and being very precise about the details that I research.
Lizeth's Blog 