Data Data on the Wall, Does it Really Mean Anything at All?

I'm currently waiting to be called into serving on a jury of my peers. My peers consist of the  woman? man? human? with a long braid, sitting in front of me, dressed like It's Pat from Saturday Night Live, snoring loudly enough to make several heads from the front of the room swivel round and stare; a man talking on a cellphone in Urdu (?) to someone I assume is hard of hearing, two woman kvelling about their talented offspring, while the others are playing around on their cell phones doing important things like scrolling down their screens with both thumbs like ambidextrous apes Since the internet access here is as fast as AOL was 15 years ago, I have plenty of time to multi-task*.  I just finished reading my New Yorker magazine then started making more beat strips to upload to the blog,  alternating with filling out report cards and pondering important life questions like, "Whose peers are these?  and "Why data collection?"

At this time of year I am administering SLOs (student learning objectives test) to about 99 first graders, a process that takes me 2-3 weeks to complete because  1. part of the test has to administered individually, meaning that at any given time 99% of the class will be not directly supervised by me, and we all know that first graders are very good at finding quality activities to occupy their time when their teacher is not looking right at them. ( I tried giving the test in their classrooms and asking their teachers to leave them with some type of work but within 3 seconds of their teacher walking out the door, tiny hands shot up with VERY IMPORTANT issues like, "My pencil broke." "She/He's looking at me."or "I don't know what to do." Meanwhile, I'm sitting in the back trying to get a child to echo my singing, "So La WOULD YOU BE QUIET! Mi  Mi." ) and 2. I have to hunt down the tons of absentees who come to school on the days that coincide with a full moon or high tide.

In the beginning of the year when we give the pre-test, we ask these first graders to bubble in the answers, which is in itself a crazy task.  Most of the kids have the fine motor coordination of a goat with Parkinson's.  That plus their .04 seconds attention span and you get children who tell you that they filled in their answer sheet to get pretty patterns.  I decided to give this part individually after I saw that those students who weren't making pretty patterns were auditioning for clown college, studying their fingers or staring into the void.  Also, many of the questions only had 2 answers, which means you really don't know if they chose an answer based on knowledge, guesswork or divine intervention.

I am opposed to data collection for this very reason.  Tests that don't ask students to generate information, but instead rely on supplying the answer in a multiple guess format do not give you enough diagnostic information.  If I hadn't interviewed my students as they took the test, I really would not know what they didn't know and why they didn't know it.  I asked them to talk to me about why they chose an answer.  I'm sure this is against all the laws of the land, but I need to know what my students know so I can teach them effectively. If they guessed the right answers then I would be teaching them based on unreliable data. 

A few years ago I was trying to figure out why my students couldn't read notes on the staff.  Many teachers, especially those who have lower performing students, struggle with this.  I tried many, many different things until one day I pointed to the staff and  asked, "Show me on you fingers how many lines  you see."  Two students held up six fingers.  I could've told them they were wrong and continued, but I was puzzled and wanted to know how they arrived at their answer so I held my snarkiness in check and asked them how they came up with the number 6.  One of the students came up to the board and pointed to the perpendicular line part of the treble staff.  It struck me that 1. I hadn't asked the question correctly.  I should've asked them how many horizontal lines they saw  and 2. if I had given a test and asked, for example, what note was on the fifth line I would've gotten wrong answers but wouldn't have known WHY I had gotten wrong answers. We, teachers, need to know what the students are bringing to the table.  Some of my kids are coming to the table with empty plates and if I ignore that and skip to dessert, they won't ever be satisfied 

And that's what's wrong with data collection.  It's based on tests that don't tell us what the students know, what the students don't know, and why the students do or don't know it.  You can't post the data from interviewing students.  But you sure do get a better idea of what's going on in their little heads.  I would love to see this craze about data collection be put to rest so we can get back to the business of teaching and students the business of learning.


 *day dream

I F**king Hate Apple

 Call number one
Thursday morning
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Number of technicians talked to: 3
Result: bupkus

Thursday morning I tried to log into my iTunes account and my password wasn't working. I reset it several times and finally I got locked out. I set up a time for a technician to call back. I stupidly forgot to turn my ringer on and missed the call so I scheduled another call.  That call came promptly but I was kept on hold for 15 minutes waiting for someone besides a robot to answer the phone.

I got my first iPod when my county updated our textbook series 9 years ago. It was the first generation--white, with a click wheel and print large enough to read with my old eyeballs. It worked really well when it worked. By the end of the first year it kept freezing and I got tired of seeing the sad Mac guy who looked like he was trying to escape his moribund surroundings. I took the iPod to the Apple store. You didn't need appointments back then. You could actually walk in and go up to a resident genius. He looked at the iPod and said it was dead. I looked at him like the sad little Mac man. Since it was under warranty I got another one. It also worked well until it stopped working about a year later.

Around this time Apple came out with the Nano, so I spent my own money and bought one. No more freezing. I sort of missed sad Mac guy. But now that I didn't have to fool with freezing, I had more time to notice stuff, like how proprietary Apple is. If you actually read some of the fine print that came with the frequent reminders to update iTunes you can see how sneaky they are. You think you own the music, but you don't. You sort of co-own it with Apple, or least it, to be more exact. But that doesn't mean into perpetuity.  Apple will try to wrest it from you in all sorts of creative ways,

With more free time I also discovered how frustrating it is to use iTunes and iPods. Try and transfer music from the iPod to iTunes. Apple doesn't want you to do that.  Why?  Read the fine print. My laptop died at the beginning of the year and I had no way of getting to my music.  I had backed up my music but no computer at my school has iTunes on it.  My tech was out sick and no one in my building has admin rights to install iTunes so I was stuck with a virtual music library that I could only play in my virtual brain.  Thank god I am still low tech enough to haul out my guitar in class.

Every so often music will disappear out of iTunes "...could not be found." Where the hell did it go? I can always find it on my computer, but how did it slip out of iTunes? Did it run away with the socks that disappeared from my laundry?   And I'm not alone with these problems.  There are countless websites that deal with user problems.  I know because I have wasted many a planning period reading about how to fix these problems from the thousands of frustrated users. Maybe we need to form a union? 

Apple products are very pretty and shiny, but they don't play well with others. Apple is the good looking, snooty girl in your 9th grade geometry class who only talked to other pretty girls and made fun of you behind your back. The work she turned  looked beautiful, like an invitation to the Queen's wedding. But her work could never compete with the tall, skinny, pimply guy in the back of the room who turned in work that looked like it had been written by a troll with a hand cramp and offered up solutions Euclid hadn't even thought of. That's Apple. A for effort. C- for grammar.

I  got a free iPad this year from my county. I have to choose between storing my iTunes on there or an update I needed to make it work. I can take about 4 minutes of video. It doesn't have flash drive. I don't have enough memory to download any app that's worthwhile. It's basically a large email device that allows me to show my face while I talk to other idiots who purchase Apple phones or iPads. Feh.

 Call number 2: Thursday afternoon
 Time: 1 hour 36 minutes.
 Number of techs talked to: 3
 Number of times disconnected:3
Frustration level: Infinity and beyond

 Call number two was supposed to be a check up call to see if the fixes from that morning were working, which of course, they weren't. The call was scheduled for 2:15. At 2:30 I called them back. I was put on hold for 27 minutes and then disconnected. I called back and it was suggested that I was locked out because my account wasn't current. I said that was highly unlikely as I hadn't purchased anything in a year and surely Apple would've garnished my wages for the 99 cents I might possibly owe. He put me on hold for 30 minutes and came back and said, "Your account is current, so that isn't the problem." By this time I had updated all my passwords to If**kinghateapple and got a slight twinge of joy every time I was asked for it or had to type it in.

 During call number two I learned that if you buy anything from the iTunes store under an email account, then that purchase will always need to be accessed using that email account. My first account was on AOL, which I think dated back to when LBJ was president. I don't have that account anymore so if I needed to receive a verification email, I was up a creek. The genius was able to just use my log in name without the aol.com and change it in the system. I finally got back into my Itunes and thought I was finished. Ha.

Call number 3
 Saturday morning
Time: 2 hours
Number of techs talked to: 2
Problem solved, but only after several set backs

During call number 3 I learned that after March 31, all old Apple email addresses had to be updated or you would lose ALL your purchased music. I asked the genius why no one I talked to at Apple had thought about telling me this, especially since I had spent most of my day chatting with half of their corporation I got the verbal equivalent of a shrug. She helpfully added, "Apple sent out an email notification about this." "Well, that's thoughtful, but what about people such as myself whose email is no longer taking any calls?" "Oh, well, I guess you didn't get an email, so you'd better update it now." I said, "But I was told I wasn't able to change any of my old email accounts and would have to use them all individually to sign into iTunes if I wanted to access my purchased music THAT I BOUGHT AND YOU SOMEHOW STILL CO-OWN WITH ME."

She remains on the phone with me as I am asked to change my AOL email to another email NOT associated with Apple. I said "But I only have 2 other addresses and they are both associated with Apple." She said "Well, you'll have to create another one." The stupidity of that made me type in my password furiously while I tried to figure out a third email that I might actually remember. I finally realized my school account wasn't associated with Apple. I hated to link up my last untainted email address with this idiotic company, but I had no choice. Now all I have to do is worry about not getting fired so I can use my school account. She walks me through all the steps and stays on to make sure I can log into iTunes  I can, but none of my purchased music is showing.  Apple has thoughtfully suggested I purchase an album by U2  They did this by showing it in my purchased column, making me think I had bought music and then developed amnesia.  I get put on hold for another 20 minutes, but she is thoughtful enough to check back with me every few minutes by saying, "I'm still waiting for someone from iTunes to pick up." I am mentally inputting my password over and over again. She comes back and says, "i don't know how you did it, but you changed all your emails to one address and that's all you need now." I said, "But I thought that wasn't possible?" She said, "It's not, but you did it."

 Man oh man. I wish I could remember what I did, because I would take out the equivalent of a front page ad on the world wide web to tell everyone how I did it. But for now, you should that it's possible. And I would encourage you to use If**kinghateapple as part of your password, although I would spell it out. It feels good to type it.

Thank You For All You Do

Over the years I've gotten my share of  thank you for all you do emails. They inevitably follow a request to do something fun, like pick up an extra duty or cover a class. The thank you for all you do is the closing line so that you understand that nothing you're being asked to do is negotiable. I have my suspicions that it's an admin code for " f**k you, silly underling." ( Another code is a see me email without any explanation.  It is admin code for "This is an ambush and you are in a heap of trouble.")

So the other day, I took my first graders to the Atlanta Symphony.   The ASO provides several outreach programs and I was able to get a grant to take the entire first grade.  It was a program about musical opposites (loud/soft, fast/slow, etc), concepts that we work on in kindergarten and first grades.

There were lots of schools in attendance, with a healthy mix of suburban and urban populations.  Not surprisingly, there wasn't a person of color in the orchestra and I was wondering how or if my students would notice.  I m not sure how  much my kids notice race. During Black history month I will sometimes mention  that 50 years ago it would've been highly unlikely that I would have been teaching African American students like themselves, and I can always count on several to pipe up, "but you're not white; you're light skinned." The rest of the students are trying to fathom being on this planet for more than 50 years and stare at me in disbelief when they figure out I'm older than their great, great, great grandparents. (Age is something else little people have no concept of.  One year when asked on my birthday by a first grader how old I was I said, "110, and as the class exited the room I heard her tell her classmates, "Ms. Jove is 110 years old! )  For the record, I go out in the sun only under duress and am about as colorful as a snowball.  The first time I heard the comment about being light skinned I mentioned it to a Black teacher and she said  it was a compliment, so that's the story I'm going with.  Anyway, I was glad to see that at least the conductor was African American.  I think it's important for children to see people who look like them doing important jobs.

My students were beautifully attired.  Two boys had on  three piece suits and many girls wore their party dresses.  As we were entering the hall I looked around and noticed several of the  more suburban students  hopping and jumping around like frogs on a bad LSD trip.  I looked at my students.  They were standing quietly in a line, one head behind the other, mouths in the closed position, hands and feet held in check.  The five first  grade teachers surveyed their students with a watchful eye, and two of them were holding the hands of their most squirrelly ones.  If a student even approached antsy pantsy phase, his teacher would swoop down and nip it in the bud.  I watched the teachers of the LSD tripping frog children and they seemed oblivious to all external stimulation.   I had to fight the impulse to run over and fuss at one kid who  looked like he was throwing out the first pitch at Turner Field over and over again to another one playing the role of imaginary catcher. The students at my school are not easy to control and if you turn your back they will invent all sorts of dangerous jobs for themselves, but I know that within nanoseconds there will be an adult who will close down shop just as quickly.  But these looked like middle class kids who I've heard said are supposed to know better.  Well, they don't. They were exhausting to watch. I wanted to hand their teachers the number of a local pharmacy.

 During the performance I tried to tune out the banging of little feet on the backs of chairs and the rustling of whatever the little ones saw fit to rustle about with.   Then I glanced at my students.  One was sleeping, but the rest were staring transfixed at the stage trying to suppress their need to tell me that they recognized the pieces on the program or had seen that instrument in my room.  Several were surreptitiously doing the patterned movement routines I use when I play classical music.  I was doing them, too.  Music makes us want to move.  It's just that we have that slapped out of us when we're young. 

As we exited the concert hall I overheard many of my students tell their teachers or each other how much they enjoyed the program.  Again their teachers kept them in quiet lines as we went to wait  for the buses.  And again I saw the crazy frog children twirling and bopping around while the adults in charge engaged themselves by  communing with air molecules.We stood outside for about 10 minutes and I couldn't believe how the other kids were behaving.  Running, jumping, twirling and oddly gesticulating...and those were the quieter ones. 

The first grade at my school is definitely a level or two above the other grades.  Part of it is because many of them have been there since pre-k.  But a large part is due to their teachers.  I teach every kid in my school and I know that with certain teachers I will see a steady improvement both in behavior and academics.   I am grateful to them.  To them I say, "thank you for all you do."  And I mean it.  No strings attached.

birdbox studios
piano tutorial
communication skills

You have 15 minutes.

3. PUBLIC SPEAKING

2500 riot-crazed aborigines are storming the classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.

4. BIOLOGY

Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 50 million years earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. Prove your thesis.

5. MUSIC

Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate it and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your desk.

6. PSYCHOLOGY

Based on your knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodites, Ramses II, Gregory of Nicea, and Hammurabi. Support your evaluation with quotations from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not necessary to translate.

7. SOCIOLOGY

Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory.

8. ENGINEERING

The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed on your desk. You will also find and instruction manual, printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel appropriate. Be prepared to justify your decision.

9. ECONOMICS

Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas: Cubism, the Donatist controversy, and the wave theory of light. Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criticize this method from all possible points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view, as demonstrated in your answer to the last question.

 

">Sound of Music condensed version

Here we go again.    Back in the Land of 10,000 Acronyms

 Just when you think you can not possibly recycle the same idea anymore, back it comes, dressed in a new acronym.  I don't know about other professions, but in education, that seems to be the norm.   Either we rename it, e.g. differentiation is a born again version of the one room school house,  or we rebrand it with a new acronym: Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP)  formerly known as Professional Development Plan (PDP) formerly known as pink slip-- something that harkens back to The Era Before Acronyms (TEBA).

Our new acronym is...drum roll..... PBR....  hmmm....that doesn't seem right.  PB&J  I don't think so. PabLum?  nope, that's not right.  Oh, wait a minute....  PBIS ( pronounced  PEE-bihs),   Wait for it......(Hint: A day after it was introduced we were told not to call it that in front of the kids because it sounded like....).   PBIS stands for positive behavior something something. 

The system we had before was called PAWS, an acronym that stands for positive something or other--I guess I'm not good with acronyms, but at least I got the positive part right.   Our school mascot is a tiger so, double bonus there. PAWS were slips in triplicate that we were supposed to give out  whenever we caught students doing the right thing. The PAWS were redeemable for edible and non-edible McDonaldi's type gifts.

Problem 1. First thing to go down was that the kids were angry if they didn't get a PAW when one of their classmates did.  "Why didn't I get one?  Wasn't I good?" was their whiny battle cry.  I tried to hand them out stealthily, but word always got out and I was accosted with, "But you gave __ one last week and I wasn't throwing anything, either."   I tried to help them understand that it was important to celebrate other students achievements and turn it into a teachable moment, but the more I thought about it, the more I sympathized with the kids.  If my co-workers always got the attaboys for the same things I was doing, I think my envy button would light up a bit.  So if an adult is capable of feeling this way, why would students be expected to be twice as magnanimous?

 I  finally resorted to hiring helpers every month.  I chose three types of helpers: Group one were students that demonstrated content knowledge and could be called upon to help instruct other students who were flailing around.    For example I would find the students who could demonstrate proper recorder technique (i.e. not banging it incessantly on the floor or using it as a periscope) and designate a few of them to help new students get caught up to the class. Group two  were the ones who behaved well.  I gave them very important positions like Person in Charge of Closing the Door or Person Who Gets to Sit Next to Me on a Chair in Front of the Class (PiCCDoP and PWGSNM.  (I have a feeling I need help in the deriving acronyms department)  The third group  were discipline problems whom I had finally caught doing something more productive than creating a public disturbance so I used the job as a way to reinforce that positive behavior. (I'm still puzzling over why kids want jobs in the class.  In my school days I would slink down in my desk so I wouldn't be called on to clap the erasers outside in the courtyard, a strangely coveted position)   At the end of the month, if the helpers had performed their jobs well, I would pay them 4 PAWS.  There were enough jobs for all the kids at least once during the year and it seemed to work well for the kids and me.  It was like being queen of a bee hive, minus the honey.

Problem 2:  Uneven distribution.  Some teachers gave PAWS out like candy.  Others were miserly.  Battle cry whine no. 2, "But Ms. blahdeeblah gives them out all the time," or "My teacher NEVER gives them out."  Kids quickly figured out who the Santa Paws were and made sure that they did stuff like picking up imaginary papers in the hallway or smiling like a pre-frontal lobotomy patient when that teacher was looking. 

Problem 3:  Thievery.  A nice little black market economic soon sprang up.  The forms were in triplicate, and that was supposed to alleviate that problem.   There was a white, pink and yellow layer.  You had to press down with a boulder to get something to show on the third copy and were supposed to keep one color, turn in another color and give the white copy to the student.  Everyone kept forgetting to turn in their copies or remember which colors were to be turned in,  turned in illegible copies or lost them.  And then the front office  became so inundated with colored paper that they stopped asking for the copies.  Underground economy went into overdrive.

Problem 4.  No more money for rewards.

Problem 5.  It didn't work.  The good kids were still good and the bad kids were still bad, which took place somewhere between the time the newness wore off and the underground economy exploded. 

So here we go again, except this time the forms aren't in triplicate.  Hooray for innovations. And to kickoff this repackaged failure, we sat in a meeting that lasted for 1 hour and three million minutes.  The presenters and the administration had little cat noses and whiskers stenciled on their faces.  I didn't ask why.  It was fairly obvious.  They had come down with feline leukemia.  

We got to play some fun fun fun games at this professional development led by the cat women.  Fun games like four corners.  Each corner of the room was labeled A, B, C or D.  One cat woman read a question and when the multiple choice answers were read, you went to the corner with the corresponding letter.  I just followed the faculty members who looked serious (2 of them).  We also got to stand up and play a variation of Who Put the Cookie in the Cookie Jar. The cat lady who demonstrated confused the word beat with rhythm, which even my second graders can tell you IS NOT THE SAME THING.  I went to the bathroom. I could've distilled the meeting down to 14 minutes,  and if we had cut out the games and other nonsense, it would've lasted as long as it takes to sing Hot Cross Buns if that song was sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks after smoking crack .  I don't understand why we have to inject a healthy dose of cute into meetings or be forced to play games suited for patients in a mental hospital recovering from aphasia.   I am more open to learning when it's presented in an academic atmosphere.  I don't need to play Pin the Tail on the Mousie to learn.  I am fully capable of comprehending sentences that have more than 5 words.

The day after the Feline Games. I went to talk to the Kindergarten special needs teacher whose opinion I value.  She is a wonderful teacher and has a lot of experience in behavior modification.  She and I remember the first go round with PAWS.  We talked about how she had gone into the classrooms and observed teachers and then implemented strategies for each teacher.  If the strategies failed or stopped working, she went back in and retooled.  The long and short of it was that her system, labor intensive as it was, worked.  I don't know why we asked the cat people and not the expert to formulate a behavior intervention plan.  

We also have instituted PEACE POINTS, which each grade level can accrue if their entire grade goes a day without an office referral. Every 15 points accrued is a reward ranging from a popsicle party to  pizza party to movie day.  I am highly, highly skeptical  that children have the ability to 1. think about the welfare of their group and 2. wait more than 1 day for a reward. "Listen, Jemeese, if you don't slug Antoine for calling you a booger nose, then your entire grade level with earn a peace point."        THWACK

PAWS is just a way to show the county we are doing something about school-wide discipline, and if we wrap it in a positive  acronym, then it looks like we're doing the right thing.  But we're not.  The right thing is research-based.  The right thing doesn't neatly fit into an acronym. The right thing in one school is not the right thing for another.   The right thing takes hard work and is labor intensive, and I, for one, would like to roll up my sleeves, and not take the easy way out.

I do understand the frustration our administration must feel having to deal with daily student eruptions.  I was standing in the principal's office one day when the custodian came in to tell her that for the third time this week, someone had taken a dump on the bathroom floor. I thought to myself,  is it really that hard to walk the extra 4 steps to the stall?"  Then I thought, "Wow, it sucks to be head of this school sometimes."  But to her credit, she took it in strive and told me that you have to keep a sense of humor.  First time I've ever seen an administrator act like a human. 

I think everyone's hearts are in the right place. We are, in effect, all in it together.  I just think the wrong people were called in for advice.  We should've had a faculty meeting that allowed us to talk about the issues in an adult way and not held a pep rally for people with early onset of Alzheimer's.  This is a serious issue; we cannot teach effectively if our students are disruptive.  It's  a complicated and difficult problem and I think we didn't tackle it seriously enough.

I have let a few weeks lapse before posting this.  After the winter break we spent specials time going over the school expectations, something I think should've been done at the beginning of the year and repeated prn (I like that acronym)  The following day the behavior school-wide as well as my classes had improved significantly, so I thought that perhaps I had been too hasty in condemning the initiatives.  I will admit, however; that I was taking bets with a few faculty members on how long it would last.  Bets ranged from 24 hours to a few days.  I said a week.  I won.

Mallet Wrapping

 how to repair orff instruments
http://teachingwithorff.com/category/teaching-tips/

Teaching Improvisational Skills

Before I start teaching improvisation I do a game called I've Got The Rhythm/I've Got the Beat

Students stand in a circle and I demonstrate and say: I've got the rhythm, now check my beat (I use a dotted rhythm for the first part and 4 quarter notes for the second).  I use four levels of body percussion to demonstrate a four beat pattern.  I do several patterns and then when the students are ready, we go around the circle.  Sometimes some students will do a rhythm because they confuse the two.  The second time around the circle I change the chant to I've got the beat now check my rhythm.  My students want to do elaborate step dance moves, so I ask them to either clap or pat the rhythm and that makes it easier to echo.  

Note: I do this activity a few times a year because I have so many new students all the time.

After this activity we will talk about the difference between beat and rhythm.  I ask questions like, "What do your toes tap when you hear music? or When you tell me that song has a great beat, what do you really mean?"

Next I ask the class to clap a four beat rhythm and then I extend it to 8 12 and finally 16.  I count it out 1234, 2234, ect.  On the 16th beat I tell them to hold their hands up in the air.  

The extension to this exercise is going to the instruments and having each family echo me--woods, metals, skins, etc.  If there are some students who are not shy, I'll call out solos.  At the end all the instruments improvise for 16 beats and then we rotate.  

This year I did this activity the week before Valentine's day.  The following week we did a passing game to Big Bunch of Roses

I bought some plush roses at Oriental trading company and the students did a passing game with the song.  We did the song twice and then I had them improvise a rhythm.  The first time I had them improvise while audiating the song one time and then extended it to two times.  I extended it by transferring the activity to the instruments.  When the students are improvising on the Orff instruments I ask them to try and get a secret song--this prevents them from playing like kindergarteners with their hair on fire.

There's an activity in GAMEPLAN, grade three that is also wonderful for shorter improvisation.  The students learn the song Old Joe Clark

I only use the first verse and on the B section (m.9) I play the piano while they clap for 4 beats, pat for 4 beats, clap 4 and pat 4.  There are two instruments set up in the middle of the circle.  I use conga drums and a washboard, but anything will do.  One person improvises on the clapping and one on the patting.  I do have to model some ideas otherwise many of them will just play 4 steady beats.

Question and answer improvisation activities:

I start many classes by having students echo rhythm patterns and will eventually segue into Q and A by asking them to substitute beat one of the pattern with something else, then beat three and continue until they have a different four beat pattern than the one they are echoing. After this is secure I will have the group do an answer to my rhythms for 4 beats and then extend that until they can comfortably do 16 beats.  

 

Acka Backa Soda Cracker

The first part goes like this:
My mother, your mother

Visit every day

But every night they have a fight

and this is what they say:
Acka Backa Soda Cracker

Acka Back Boo

Acka Back Soda Cracker

Out goes you

In partners, students do a simple hand clapping pattern (clap r, clap own, clap left, clap own)  and on the Acka Back one student will walk away from his partner waving a finger in the air as if yelling at someone.  On the word "you" the partner returns and then the second partner has a chance.  

The following week I have the students line up in two rows.  On the acka backa section a student from one side will improvise a rhythm using rhythm syllables and the student from the other side responds. Before this activity starts I do about 7 minutes of reading and/or playing rhythms as a preparation.  I extend the activity to hand drums and then melody instruments the third week.