The Fabulous Gayle Bleak

Gayle is one of those teachers you sit back, watch, and have a smile on your face the entire time. She brings such joy as she teaches. She didn't have the advantage of knowing I was going to record her, but she did give me permission to use the recording. I didn't know I was going to record either, but I couldn't resist. I kept the camera mostly on Gayle in case any of the students had turned in the form saying they didn't want to be recorded. 

Here Gayle is teaching a first grade class. I wish I would have started recording sooner, because she pulled out Sassy the puppet to help review sulfege, and it was truly magic. Just look at those students faces! If any of you need an idea to engage your lower grades while you are presenting a concept, a puppet is a sure win.

The book Gayle reads is called The Penguin that Hated the Cold. 

Here's a link to it on amazon: click here

One of the things that is really great about how Gayle teaches is her classroom management. Here are some of the great things I noticed:

• specific positive reinforcement. She doesn't just say "good job," but she specifically says what the students were doing well. If most of the students are doing the desired behavior, and only one or two weren't, she'd still comment on the positive. Usually that positive reinforcement (which is also stating an expectation) was enough to bring in the stragglers without having to single them out.
• Pacing. Gayle moves quickly from one thing to the next. Even when she praises, she doesn't spend too long, and it keeps the students focused and prevents behavior problems. 
• Students feel valued and safe to answer questions. She asks students for ideas. When Marley came up with a song, she used Marley's song again and had everyone sing it. Even though it might not have been the song Gayle had intended to use, she found room to make it work. 
• Movement. Gayle used solfege hand signs to keep the students moving while they were singing during the story. She brought movement into every single concept she taught.
• Less Talk, More Doing - We all are guilty of talking too much when we teach. Especially if we are using movement, students will copy what we do and figure it out. 

Doing The Penguin

This was adorable. When I mentioned that smile on my face, this was definitely part of that. Are you grinning, too?

This song is in the Making Music books. It's on the second Kindergarten CD. If you don't have the cd's or the books, we have some you can check out.

After the penguin dance, the students reviewed ta and ti-ti notation. (She had a 4 beat measure of each written on flash cards.) They listened for the ti-ti's in Chinese Dance, from the Nutcracker. She also had a picture of a flute and of the string family, so the students could see the instruments they were hearing. Gayle brought in movement with the listening: students moved their feet to the ti-ti rhythm during the ti-ti section, and moved in flowing moments to the flute sections. Gayle did a more complex version of this lesson with her second grade. Let one of us know if you want to know more. 

(For her second grade, she used the Chinese Dance, but divided students into 3 groups instead of all of the students moving at once. One group played ta or ti-ti on rhythm sticks, one moved with the strings played, one moved when the flutes played. If I remember correctly, the flue group got to dance with ribbon streamers that Gayle made herself.)

Here's a youtube video with the Chinese Dance.