Alexa Hampel

2nd Grade Lesson Observation Report

This second grade lesson was standard of how elementary general music classes usually
go. The class started with call and responses singing and breaking down the song in terms of
solfege and musical terms such as melody and rhythm. There was visual representations and
body movements involved in the song as well. It soon switched to another song that the students
seemed to know from previous games. They played the game involved with the song, and then
quickly switched to a rhythm exercise that, again, they knew. They made plans for the next class
due to time constraints but still expanded on their knowledge of said rhythm exercise. She ended
with a canoe dance from Tahiti in which they copied her movements to the song.
The first thing I observed was the classroom environment. There were absolutely no
desks, or, at least no desks in the video. There was only one desk and it was holding the
computer for the slideshow on the smart board. The teacher also didnt have a desk, opting to
only sit when at the piano. Have a big open space made it easier to have the students move
around and be actively engaged in each lesson, stand up when told, and move around for the
musical games they played. There were also instruments just about everywhere, having
xylophones in one corner and a piano and chimes in another area. There was a curtain over an
empty space right by the cabinets and there seemed to be instruments in there as well. In one part
of the lesson the teacher mentioned they would play beats on numerous instruments, showing
that the instruments were actually being used as a learning method and not there for show. There
was also the musical alphabet at the top of the front of the classroom which I thought was very
useful and smart. It was colorful and eye catching, but not distracting. On the cabinets there were
also numerous musical terms, such as rhythm, melody, and harmony. The teacher referred to
them in the lesson and used them as a learning tool, having large visual representations of basic
musical terminology.

The teacher was incredibly enthusiastic and very engaging. She spoke in a rather high
voice and animated most of what she was saying with hand, arm, and body movements. At points
it seemed she would get so excited that she wanted to keep going further in her teaching but she
had to pull herself back in order to have the students answer certain questions or share their
thoughts. At the beginning on the lesson she prompted them with a question and squatted down
to their level while they were sitting and answering, which I thought was incredibly smart
because it shows that she is on their level as opposed to someone that was above them and
smarter than them. One thing that I thought was very interesting was she got the students
attention with chimes. When she told them to talk to their thinking buddy (which is also an
amazing concept) about a certain thing, such as what instruments to use in the rhythm exercise,
she stopped their conversations by playing the chimes, rather than raising her voice. As soon as
they heard the chimes the students stopped talking and raised their hands to answer her question
she gave them time to discuss. It seems, from this, it is easier in a classroom setting to have the
students know a sound or a rhythm that prompts them to pay attention as opposed to sounded
intimidating and raising your voice. She also asked their opinion on numerous things and let
them explain their own interpretation of it.
The way she gave praise and direction to the class was very relaxed and tone down. For
example, when the students were singing the wrong pitches for the acka-backa song, she asked
what do you think was wrong with that as opposed to possibly making them feel upset by
saying you were singing this wrong. She also, for the criss-cross applesauce song, pointed
out the students in the back row because they were singing the correct pitches. She had them sing
a phrase and asked the students can you sing it like them? which is a way of giving those
students praise and also involving them in teach the lesson as well, at a very basic and second

grade level. She also, while playing the acka-backa game she kept the students who were out
engaged by keeping the singing going. Lastly, during the Tahiti canoe dance, one student
wasnt actively engaging in the movements and she, while still doing the movements for the rest
of the class to copy, slyly said Brian show me please and she left it at that. She never said pay
attention or anything along those lines, she said it in a way that made it seem like she was
making sure he understood what was being done, while still keeping him engaged in the lesson.
Possibly my favorite thing the teacher did was call the students friends. The teacher
calling them friends as opposed to class or students made the environment much less strict
and made it seem more like a musical gathering than a class. It also took away the rigid I am the
teacher and I know more than you feeling. Calling the students friends also made the teacher
be even more at their level as opposed to being above them. It also seemed like, because of
this, they respected them even more. Young children are very easily rowdy and to go against
authority but every student seemed to have the utmost respect for her, only talking to each other
when she asked them or while they were transitioning into the game they played. It is probably
the culmination of all of her classroom management methods that made them act so respectfully
and be engaged in the entire lesson.
The first lesson seemed to be Kodaly centered. The lesson was started with a visual
representation of sol and mi. the teacher called it music street and it showed sol and mi as
houses. This visual way of showing music without actual notation is incredibly smart for
students at this age, because they can understand that one thing is higher than the other and the
distance between the two is large or small, which incorporated the concept of skips and leaps.
She also introduced melody from building off of a rhythm exercise. There was the use of hand
and body solfege to sing the correct pitches. There was also a large emphasis on improvisation,

which is important in all teaching methods. She asked the students what they thought the pitch
pattern for the criss-cross song should be, had them sing it, and then had they come up with a
completely new way of singing it. She then gave them time for themselves to discuss what they
thing melody is after singing the exercise, giving them their own time to figure out musical
terms.
The acka-backa song exercise showed strongly the sound before sight concept. She
simply sang the melody on doo and had them guess what song she was singing. In fact, there
was no type of notation for this part of the lesson. It was simply imitation and a game. She
related some of the pitches back to the solfege they were doing before, showing that the use of
solfege is important no matter what. The game showed that music is done all throughout our
bodies. She also let them sing by themselves while playing the game, only keeping a steady
tempo with the piano to make sure that they dont speed up, because young children have the
tendency to do just that,
The use of different levels of body percussion for each type of rhythm in the rhythm
exercise will help them when they eventually learn the notation of rhythm. Having pie being
one long beat, cupcake being two shorter beats, and candy bar being three even shorter beats
is the basic foundation for learning the building blocks of rhythm. Also, having each word be a
specific type of body percussion gives them an easier way to feel and hear the difference
between all different types of rhythm.
The last thing I was to touch upon is the Tahiti canoe dance. This was a way of getting
away from rhythm and melody and just simply hearing a song and feeling the rhythm and feeling
the direction of it. It kept the whole body engaged in a dance that went to the beat of the song. It

was also a great way of adding culture to the room. It seemed that no student in particular had a
tie to Tahiti but it was a great way of introducing a culture that is not necessarily touched upon in
any classroom setting, especially the music classroom. She even taught them the word for canoe
in Tahitian and asked them if it was something they would normally hear in America, showing
them that they are culturally aware of something that is rather foreign to them.
There are numerous other things that this teacher did in the classroom that I could write a
novel on. These are just a few of the general observations I made relating to classroom setting,
classroom management, and pedagogical methods. The teacher seemed to incorporate all music
teaching styles, such as Kodaly, Orff, and Delacrose. She also had great classroom management
skills and was able to keep a young group of students incredibly engaged. This observation
honestly made me very excited to possibly one day be able to teach young children.