S1: E19 First Steps with Jennifer Ross
Jennifer Ross Bio
Jennifer Ross is the Early Childhood Music Teacher and has been teaching for fourteen years in public and private settings in Dallas, Garland, Georgetown, and Arlington, TX. She graduated from the University of North Texas and earned a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education. She is a member of TMEA, AOSA, NTAOSA, and completed Orff Level I at Trinity University. Jennifer is also a member of FAME and is certified to teach First Steps of Music.
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE SHOW
Jessica: I am so excited to have you on the podcast today.
Jennifer: I'm excited to be here.
Jessica: This is so fun. (laughing) So I'd love to know - did you always plan to be a music teacher?
Jennifer: No, um, I certainly did not. I started out at Lamar University on a degree plan to be an engineer, which was my dad's idea. Um, but I soon realized that it was not for me. So I went with my second choice - interior design.
Jessica: Nice.
Jennifer: And if you had seen my room and my lack of style, you would know why that wouldn't work out either. But finally I somehow got introduced to the music department and auditioned for a scholarship and I got it and I never looked back. And I started doing a music degree and later on I transferred to UNT in Denton and it was awesome. I felt like I was living the dream. And there were lots of great educators there. Dr. Henry was one of them. I really liked choir and especially SATB choir because we didn't have that at my school.
After I began teaching, I started to wonder if I had made a mistake because it was so stinkin' hard. I didn't really like it until I was introduced to Orff and then later on it really clicked for me in Early Childhood when I plugged into Dr. Feierabend and First Steps of Music.
Jessica: That's awesome. So you mentioned singing and choir. What else was your musical background like?
Jennifer: Growing up I was always in choir, always singing. I took piano lessons which is how I learned to read notation. Then in high school I made the all-region choir which was a pretty big deal for me. My parents were musical influences as well. Mom sang at church and dad played the guitar at home. It took my dad many years to get comfortable performing in front of others and eventually he started to play at church also. Then he and my mom joined a praise band at church and they played almost every Sunday until my dad unexpectedly passed away this past August. But I know that he was proud of me and he always supported everything that I did.
Jessica: And when you first became interested in teaching, were you interested in teaching young students?
Jennifer: No, not at all. I really didn't know what to do with them. Their constant needs and interruptions. It was very perplexing. At UNT, where I went to school, they offer a parent-child music class for the community and they hire music students like me to come teach the classes. So I started working there every Saturday and I loved it. I loved being around the babies, the kids and it just seemed so natural and easy. But I never thought that I would be good enough to do it on my own. It took me a while to grow into the kind of person who could do that kind of teaching. So if you're not there yet, don't worry about it. You know, everybody has to go through their growth and I had to go through lots of growth professionally and personally to become the teacher that I am today.
Once I found out about First Steps of Music, I don't want to teach any other age because I understand now the importance, the transformation that takes place in the brain and all the stuff that's going on and um, and how revitalizing it is. It's fun for me to teach it. I love doing it.
Jessica: And I love since we work together, I get to see at least the outcomes. I don't always get to see in your room, but when I pass by and I see you working with kids, you're just amazing at what you do. So I just, it seems like such a great fit for you.
Jennifer: Yeah, it's very joyful. It's a joyful place to be.
Jessica: Yeah, but it took work to get there like the rest of us. So how often do you see students and then how long are your classes?
Jennifer: I see classes every day. Kindergarten and Pre-K every day for thirty minutes. And we have another group called Primer and they come three times a week. So it's really...
Jessica: Amazing.
Jennifer: Yeah, amazing. They put, the school puts a lot of emphasis on arts education, especially music, and understands the importance of music, especially for the little ones.
Jessica: Yeah, that's great. So tell us about this age. What are some typical behaviors, strengths, challenges of these young students?
Jennifer: Well, first of all, they're just precious. And I have one of my own here in Kindergarten and then I have another one that's a baby over at PDO (Parent's Day Out). At this age, they're just precious and I get to see them every day which really helps me build relationships with them and get to know their sweet little personalities. I sometimes forget how little they are until I hear them singing on a recording. When I hear their little voices, I think 'Oh my goodness they're so little!'
The strengths of this age: They'll try anything if it's a game. They don't have those inhibitions like we do. If they know they'll all get a turn, they want to try it. Like instruments or playing a game or singing a solo. And they must perceive that you're fair. So um one thing I like to do to be fair is to write down names of who has had a turn. Then I don't forget the next day who had a turn because it can be a really big problem.
Some of the challenges: Impulsive. Short attention span. NO filter. And you must be very intentional about how you phrase your instructions. We don't want to take the joy out of making music by making a drag though so, um, you've really got to think about how you're phrasing things. And pick your repertoire and things that are going to spark joy for you as well as for them.
Jessica: Yeah. Great, great idea. And what can we expect young children to do musically?
Jennifer: Young children can sing in tune with some training. Some of them come to me that way, but most of them need just a little training to find their singing voice. They can keep a steady beat one at a time or all together in a group. They can move in artful ways. They can recite rhymes with expression and they can move creatively with some guidance.
Jessica: So they can be musicians?
Jennifer: Yup
Jessica: Yeah
Jennifer: They can be musicians.
Jessica: I agree and so how do you guide students towards singing independently?
Jennifer: I follow the Dr. Feierabend approach. The teacher sings, the students listen. Then the teacher sings and the group sings it back. The teacher sings or the groups sings and a soloist sings. And the most learning happens when you are singing by yourself so those solos are very important.
And he calls it the 4X4 rule. It helps ensure they're ready to sing alone. Four repetitions of the song within four consecutive lessons. So, for example, we're doing Old Texas. It's an echo call-and-response song. I sing it; they sing it back. I sing it; they sing it back. But after four repetitions, we move on and then the next day we do it again, but this time I might have solos. So I sing it and they sing into a pretend microphone. And it's a really big deal. They really enjoy it and they want to sing a solo because we do it this way. Enticing them with a real or pretend microphone will get even your most timid singers to try it. We use puppets all the time. I hold the puppet; they make it sing. Incentives like special stamps or stickers. And my favorite way to do it is recording them with an app I use called Seesaw.
You must insist that they use their nice singing voices. If you use a silly voice, you don't get a do-over and you miss a turn. And that's really sad. Before recording, though, I'll remind them about the rules for solo singing. You've got to stand still, only sing when it's your turn, and use your singing voice, not your silly voice. And no laughing. That's a big deal for me. I don't want them to be laughing at other kids because then those kids don't want to sing and it translates later into Lower School music and they don't want to sing because their friend laughed at them in Kindergarten so that's a big deal and I really stress that. I warn them that I'll delete the recording and try again some other day if they don't follow the rules. Then I follow through. So no one wants to mess it up once they know that.
And at this age and stage, I accept all efforts. So if I sing and they speak back, I say 'Thank you!' If they sing it too low, 'Thank you!' If they sing it perfectly, 'Thank you!' But I'm making a mental note of those who could do it and I'm going to go back and listen to the recording to double check and this will make your assessment a lot easier.
Jessica: Yeah. I like that 4x4 rule. I hadn't heard that before. So what are some ways if the students aren't matching pitch that you can help them find their singing voice?
Jennifer: Vocal exploration is really your best tool or my best tool. I'm always seeking new things, toys, and props to help them produce that descending siren (oooohh) that's necessary for finding the singing voice. I'll usually demonstrate it first and then allow the group to echo me. The next day I'll choose a child who has done it correctly many times before and have them do it. Solo to group. Sometimes it works and sometimes not so much. If it doesn't work, you just take over again and you, you do it. Demonstrate it the way you want it to be done. And if I find that child is consistently not using their head voice in singing, we just keep working on it all year long. And I'm not gonna be too concerned about that, especially at this age. But around age 7 and around second grade is when you really have to start insisting that they sing in-tune.
Jessica: So you've got a lot of nice classroom management strategies that you use with students. Part of it, I think, is your consistency and you just do what you say, which can be easier said than done. But what are some of the other classroom management strategies that you use with students?
Jennifer: Well, you try to make the lesson so engaging and interesting that there's not time for that misbehavior or that tuning out. But it doesn't always happen. Sometimes you teach something and it bombs or, you know, it just doesn't go the way you want it to. In these instances, I've found that thinking out loud and scanning the room to see who is doing what you asked really works well. So 'I wonder who's standing in their own space quietly watching me?' A lot of these tips I gleaned from the classroom teachers. So if you're one whose struggling to find and communicate to the kids what you want them to do, ask the classroom teachers because they've got so many great ideas and that's what I do. Call and response chants work well. Um, like, I know there's a few out there like:
Teacher: Mac and cheese
Students: Everybody freeze
Things that get them to say it back to you really work. Having the students echo you works really well. So for example I'll say, "Repeat after me..."
T: I will walk
S: I will walk
T: I will not make noise
S: I will not make noise
T: Yeehaw!
S: Yeehaw!
You can just throw in some funny stuff to and they like that.
Jessica: It's fun.
Jennifer: Yeah! It keeps it light and humorous and it's not so... you don't get bogged down in "oh my gosh - the kids are not listening to me!" Just keep it fun.
Knock-knock jokes are always a hit with the little ones. But a warning, do not let them tell you knock-knock jokes because it will just keep going and going and going and going.
One thing that they're very concerned with, which I mentioned earlier, is fairness. So when someone has a turn, write it down. I write it down on my white board - grouped by class. And then the next day I can just quickly scan over the list and then make sure I'm calling new names. And they will remind you. It has helped a lot with the arguing and frustration that I used to experience a lot of. And I learned that tip from Dr. Feierabend himself.
Singing during transitions, especially lining up, helps with some of that. And every year I try to think of a fun new way to enter and exit the room. I know the first few years I played the ukulele and sang a song and my neighbor across the hall wanted to put cotton in her ears and close the door and crawl into her safe space because she heard it like ten times a day every day. And I have to admit I got tired of it too. So I had to think outside the box and come up with another idea and keep it fresh. And because I want to be a good neighbor. But this year I'm using a song to the tune of a song called Donkey Riding. And I heard it from Randy DeLelles, who sang it at a workshop, and when he sang it it was just so beautiful, but it's called Donkey Riding so... I sing it with these words like:
Time to line up at the door
walking quickly across the floor
We don't cut or push in line
We just wait we take our time
We will wait in our straight row
'til the teacher says, 'let's go'
We will wait in our straight row
'til the teacher says, 'let's go'
So it's a really cute melody that nobody's heard before, at least at here. It's long enough that it gives them time to get in line. And then if I have any issues, I'm just, as I'm singing, I'm just moving this little hand and moving this kid here and you know, all the little things that we have to do. And they wait for me to say, 'Let's go!' and we go!
I used to sing Time for Music by Lynn Kleiner:
Time for Music here we go - uh-huh, uh-huh
I tried to change it up, like I said, and this year I've also started doing a march as they walk in the room. And I've learned this from Dr. Feierabend also:
And there's a few other variations. It's quiet because they want to hear the words because it sounds funny. They're engaged because they want to learn it. I can easily tell who can march to a steady beat just by looking at the line. And it works. So I don't have a whole class rewards system because music itself is the reward. And if someone's having a problem and they're not following the rules, I just have two little chairs and we walk over to the chair and I say, 'you know, you're not ready for this. Stay here for a minute and I'll invite you back in a minute. And I really do keep it short. And on the next repetition of the song or next couple repetitions - 'are you ready to come back and stand up? are you ready to come back and use your nice singing voice?' Whatever. And usually they are.
I do give smellies. You've probably heard of those. It's scented lip balm. And you rub it on the backs of their hands when they're in lines. So they just face the front and put a hand on their head. And as I'm going down the line, I just give them a little dab of that. And they're quiet and they can smell it with their lips together, just smell it on your hand. Then we're ready to go. But now that it's flu season, I try not to do that because inevitably a smelly becomes a licky.
Jessica: Oh yeah.
Jennifer: So we have to stop those for a while, but those are my best tips for classroom management.
Jessica: It takes a lot of organization and classroom management to keep up with young children and their needs. And I know because you see them so often you go through an enormous amount of material. So how do you stay organized with what has already been taught or what you're teaching?
Jennifer: Most of what I do in class is from the First Steps of Music Lesson Plan Book. Dr. Feierabend has already laid out - I can't remember exactly how many - but several semesters of lessons. And it gets me through most of the school year; probably until about March, not including holiday songs that I want to add in. I do keep up with my weekly lesson plans in Google Drive. I've made my own template that follows the eight step workout for First Steps of Music. And I use those slides to keep a bank of images and I organize them by type of activity so songs, warm-ups, movement exploration, fingerplays. They're all categorized and I use pictures to help students associate that picture with that song. So they don't necessarily need to read to know what song is up next and it keeps me on track of what we're doing in the lesson. I just click to the next slide. Oh - it's time for an echo song. Oh - it's time for a simple song! And they can see by the picture what song it is and are ready. I keep that all in just one file on Google Drive. One big file. And then I keep a separate file of lesson plans in a folder in Google Drive. I have several other resources. I just keep them on the shelf next to me and reach over randomly and I used to know a song about Valentine's day or President's Day and it's from Randy Delelles and Jeff Kriske. So I'm gonna pull that book down and look for that. And things that I don't use or haven't used since I've been here, I put it in a cupboard and I keep it for a couple years. And if I still don't use it, I pass it on to someone who can use it. But that's mainly what I use.
There's also a Facebook Group, the Feierabend Fundamentals, that I use almost every day. I'm looking through there because there are so many great ideas and so many posts every day from teachers all over the world really who are sharing their ideas for what they are doing with these songs. And so, that's a big resource for me, but mostly to stay organized I just use Google Drive a lot.
Jessica: Yes, I love Google Drive.
Jennifer: Me too.
Jessica: And you also have your students perform for families. How do you put together a program for parents that demonstrates the learning in your classroom?
Jennifer: I love programs and I love to use a picture book that's popular with that age group or one that I like and want to introduce them to. I try to have at least one type of activity from the First Steps of Music Workout for each character or page in the story. So I'm talking like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, My Many Colored Days, you know, those type of picture books. And animals are the easiest, seem to be the easiest program and there's so many songs about animals and fingers-lays and games. So when I'm putting together a program, I usually like to start with a picture book and then I will assign a song for each character in the book. And I ask myself, "what's going to be easiest for them to learn and what's going to fit easiest with the songs that they already know?" Because up until this point, having music every day, they've learned many, many songs and I don't necessarily want to teach them all new stuff for a program because that's hard, number one, and number two, if they're just learning it and then have to present it, it's probably not going to be as polished as if they had already internalized it and learned it very well.
So I like to pick a book and the criteria for choosing a book is it has to appeal to a wide adults and children. And Dr. Feierabend likes to say it's child-like not childish. And it's still delicious after thirty repetitions. These are books that have been around for a long time that people love. And most of them must have a sense of wonder, make believe, and fantasy. And you've got yourself a winner if you find one like that. And I'm always looking for new ideas.
Jessica: How do you create the transitions between the pieces to keep students going? 'Cause they're so young and there's so many of them.
Jennifer: Well really it started from Lynn Kleiner. She was a great inspiration for that because I believe I went to a workshop with her and I've seen her at TMEA and at AOSA. And she just has a way of making things flow from one thing to another and telling a story. I know that a lot of teachers do that, but she just has a magical way with it. And so I tried to do what she does. So I started to play with the ukulele which she inspired me to do. Thank you Lynn! For my first couple years here at Good Shepherd, I would play the ukulele in-between sets or play a drum to get them to the next thing. But since I'm using books now, the easiest thing to do is just to have a student read the page because it's a picture book so it's going to have a small sentence that's very manageable for a very young child to be able to memorize and say into a microphone. And then that gives them something to do because not every child wants to play an instrument and not every child wants to sing a solo or do a special dance so they get to have a speaking part so that's totally fine with them if it's fine with me.
Jessica: Yeah.
Jennifer: So I'll assign the lines and then it usually works out so that every student in the entire grade level gets to do something special. Like I mentioned, playing an instrument, using a special prop. Last year I made bird wings and they did a Move-It to classical music and one class got to wear the wings and that was a big deal for them. You could have them say a line or sing a small solo. We practice three or four times, the whole thing, before we present it to the parents and then school so they really get those transitions down.
Jessica: Can you share what is First Steps of Music and then also a little bit about John Feierabend?
Jennifer: Absolutely! First Steps in Music is a music curriculum to optimize children's musical development. Dr. Feierabend is the man who developed this curriculum. He is a former music educator. he's a former professor. He is still at the Hartt School of Music and he teaches a class there every summer. He developed this curriculum because there seems to be a lack in quality music education in literature and curriculum.
Jessica: Particularly with younger ages?
Jennifer: With younger, yeah. A lot of times when people are looking at their music programs, they think, "It's not really important at five. Why do we need Kindergarten music?" And that's what he had run into. He started to just kind of notice that and then lots of things happened that pushed him in this way, but eventually he has done so much to research in the area of child development and music and movement and how that relates to childhood development. And it's just amazing. And I know that it took him years to compile all this stuff. It was a huge undertaking, but what he has come up with is that everyone can be tuneful, beatful, and artful. It's an 8-part musical workout that with time helps children develop their sense of beat, they get comfortable singing and moving, and they express as well sense the beauty and emotion in music that they hear.
There is a new podcast: The Tuneful Beatful Artful Music Teacher available out there for all of you to listen to and I would highly recommend it because I'm not doing it justice. You've got to listen to Dr. Feierabend and Dr. Strong talk about the First Steps in Music curriculum and why he started it. It's just amazing.
Jessica: It is. I just listened to their episode about Conversational Solfege. I'm about half way through the episode. It's a great new podcast.
Jennifer: Absolutely. So Dr. Feierabend is one of the leading authorities on child development in the fields of music and movement. He has painstakingly researched child development, the brain, how children learn music, and he has collected hundreds of folk songs from our culture - from America. And his inspiration was Kodály. Kodály was from Hungary and in Hungary, they do schooling a little differently, but the main thing that he learned was that we need to use our mother tongue to teach our children our music. So our music sounds a little different than Hungarian music. For example, we have a lot of mi-re-do and 6/8, whereas in Hungary, they don't.
The purpose of First Steps is that it's designed to be aural and if a child who is three comes to you and they can't sing in tune, that's probably because they haven't been sung to. It's because of neglect. And one thing that Dr. Feierabend said at a workshop that I went to was "Could you imagine not talking to your child for the first three years of life?" Absolutely not! I mean I can't imagine not singing to a baby either, but I guess there are some people out there who do not feel comfortable singing.
Jessica: I was going to say, that takes, it goes back to our music teachers and as we've gone along and become adults, it's like - I think - some people get fearful that they don't have the best voice or that they're not musicians so then they don't sing and it's like "No! Sing anyway, you know..."
Jennifer: Yes. And it's a fact that not everyone that we teach is going to go on to be a music educator or a musician. And about 90% of the people that we teach will not. So what are we doing for the other 90% is what First Steps in Music is all about. It's helping everyone achieve that musical ability. And not necessarily being talented at it. Just being comfortable doing it. And starting at this age is perfect because as they move on to Lower School and Middle School they've already done all these things and they're not inhibited.
Delaying literacy but developing musicality is what it's all about. So we don't want to teach them how to read music yet. That doesn't make sense. We want to fill them with hundreds of songs and rhymes and fun things just like you would if a child was learning how to read. You would not read them just the same primer book over and over again. You would read them lots and lots of books and build their vocabulary and build their imagination so that's kind of what this is all about.
Tuneful, beatful, artful children are important because they can synchronize with other people in body, mind, and spirit. And I won't talk about it a lot, but the brain is amazing and the neurons are like seeds. You use it or you lose it. You really want to organize the brain the right way the first time because it's hard to reorganize it later. And at about age seven is when that happens so if they have had no musical anything up until age seven, it can be done, but it's really hard to teach that after age seven.
Most learning takes place individually. So with solo singing, that's when most learning takes place is with solo singing. And there are lots of opportunities to sing solo with this curriculum. And another purpose is to make classical music a necessity of life. I can't imagine life without Beethoven's Fifth or without this beautiful music out there and I don't want it to go away. I want to turn on that next generation of people to that beautiful music and we do that too with movement to classical music. Dr. Feierabend calls them Move-Its.
Five years old is the most important year for brain and music development. So if someone approaches you about getting rid of your Kindergarten music program, No! don't do that. It's the most important year for brain and music development.
Jessica: It's wild. Well they're like sponges. I mean, they're taking in so much information and what does it mean to be tuneful, beatful, and artful?
Jennifer: I have posters on my wall here and I found them on the Feierabend Fundamentals Facebook Page for free! But um, to be tuneful means to sing with a proper head voice and to be able to think tunes. Beatful means feeling and moving to the big and small beats in music, particularly groups of twos and threes. And artful means responding to the artfulness in music and to be able to sense the beauty and emotion in the music we hear.
Jessica: I like that. So how do you create all of those things within your students within a thirty minute class. Like, for example, can you walk us through kind-of an order of what musical experiences you give to students in a single class?
Jennifer: Sure. We will do the 8 steps workout. I will show you what that looks like. As students are coming in, we're keeping the beat and marching to a tempo, to a rhyme that I've already taught. So that's Beat Keeping. They're coming in beat keeping. You could also play classical music. There's a certain range of tempo that's appropriate for this age. You don't want too slow and you don't want too fast. To find their appropriate tempo. And then you can play a game called Here-There. We do this often. You tap one arm "Here-there-here-there" and you can do it in groups of twos and threes. And that would start the lesson. Then we would move into vocal exploration which is finding that singing voice. And there are so many fun poems and toys and things that you can use to get up in the head voice and they will be right there with you. They love it.
And then after they find their head voice, we do a simple echo song: I sing, you sing it right back. This week we're doing Old Texas.
I'm going to leave (I'm going to leave)
Old Texas now (Old Texas now)
After that we do a simple song, which is, a simple song is a little bit longer and it has a little bit more range, but it's still simple enough for them to remember it and it puts it in musical syntax so it's like a sentence. And they can eventually sing it on their own. An example of a simple song would be:
It's simple enough and short enough that they can remember it and do it independently. After a simple song we would go into the most important part of the lesson which I admit sometimes I don't get to, is arioso. Arioso is creating your own tunes. For most of the beginning of the year, it's the teacher demonstrating and encouraging the students to just make sounds and do improvisatory things like with cow puppets we'll moo back and forth. Or with whales - we'll sing back and forth like a whale would. Or with hummingbirds, we'll hum. Later on, we can add words to that like a familiar nursery rhyme and we sing a tune to Humpty Dumpty that we make up. And then later on they're making up their own songs. And that's the ultimate goal is to create their own music.
Then we'll move into movement exploration or a warm-up like a fun game. Yesterday with Kindergarten we played Walking on Eggshells and Imaginary Drums so they pretend to walk on eggshells and when I play the tambourine, they freeze and pretend to play imaginary drums. So it's kind of the opposite of light movement versus heavy movement.
And then we take that idea and go into movement for form and expression. And they are fingerplays, circle games, and move-its - what Dr. Feierabend calls Move-Its -that explore those ways to move.
And a move-it is prescribed movements that he and Peggy Lyman created to go with classical music and then later on, because the kids have heard those songs so often, the classical music so often, that when they hear it later on in life, they'll day "Oh! I remember that" and it happens to me all the time. I remember listening to things when I was a kid and here it comes back. And it also kind of instills within them artfulness and the love for the classical music which is what we want.
After then after movement for form and expression, we can do some more beat keeping with a game or with classical music. And to finish the lesson, I would sit in my big red chair, say, "come closer," and sing them a story. And I have song tale books or I could just do it from memory
Like today we did Had a Little Rooster and I know that the most recent songtale book from Dr. Feierabend is Had a Little Rooster. And I'm waiting for my copy and I can't wait to get it!
Jessica: Is it already out?
Jennifer: It's out. It came out at TMEA.
Jessica: Okay.
Jennifer: And that's it! And then we would line up and do it all over again for the next class.
Jessica: So you're rotating through activities roughly like every 4 minutes. Every 3-4 minutes? Is that about right?
Jennifer: Yeah, it's really quick. It's designed to be quick because you know that attention span, but also I don't want to give everybody a turn because they need to have something to look forward to next time and that's part of that incentive for classroom management also. So like, "Oh! We're going to do it again tomorrow!" You know you've got that to look forward to.
Jessica: And they enjoy the repetition.
Jennifer: Oh they absolutely do.
Jessica: The more familiar.
Jennifer: Yeah, we all like to sing things that we're familiar with and that we know. We don't like to pretend to sing along to something that we don't know. And they will try to do that too.
Jessica: Some great ideas for First Steps and there's all sorts of books, right? Because there's the First Steps Curriculum, but then there's Call and Response books and there's Fingerplay books and he's got the larger curriculum book, but then you can also get some of the more individualized to fill in.
Jennifer: Yes, he has Book of Call and Response, Book of Songtales, Book of Fingerplays, Book of Beat Motions, and they're all available on the GIA website. GIA is the publisher that he uses.
Jessica: I'll post a link in there.
Jennifer: There are also lots of handouts that he's used at his workshops and lots of good resources on that website.
Final Questions:
Jennifer Ross is the Early Childhood Music Teacher and has been teaching for fourteen years in public and private settings in Dallas, Garland, Georgetown, and Arlington, TX. She graduated from the University of North Texas and earned a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education. She is a member of TMEA, AOSA, NTAOSA, and completed Orff Level I at Trinity University. Jennifer is also a member of FAME and is certified to teach First Steps of Music.
TRANSCRIPT FROM THE SHOW
Jessica: I am so excited to have you on the podcast today.
Jennifer: I'm excited to be here.
Jessica: This is so fun. (laughing) So I'd love to know - did you always plan to be a music teacher?
Jennifer: No, um, I certainly did not. I started out at Lamar University on a degree plan to be an engineer, which was my dad's idea. Um, but I soon realized that it was not for me. So I went with my second choice - interior design.
Jessica: Nice.
Jennifer: And if you had seen my room and my lack of style, you would know why that wouldn't work out either. But finally I somehow got introduced to the music department and auditioned for a scholarship and I got it and I never looked back. And I started doing a music degree and later on I transferred to UNT in Denton and it was awesome. I felt like I was living the dream. And there were lots of great educators there. Dr. Henry was one of them. I really liked choir and especially SATB choir because we didn't have that at my school.
After I began teaching, I started to wonder if I had made a mistake because it was so stinkin' hard. I didn't really like it until I was introduced to Orff and then later on it really clicked for me in Early Childhood when I plugged into Dr. Feierabend and First Steps of Music.
Jessica: That's awesome. So you mentioned singing and choir. What else was your musical background like?
Jennifer: Growing up I was always in choir, always singing. I took piano lessons which is how I learned to read notation. Then in high school I made the all-region choir which was a pretty big deal for me. My parents were musical influences as well. Mom sang at church and dad played the guitar at home. It took my dad many years to get comfortable performing in front of others and eventually he started to play at church also. Then he and my mom joined a praise band at church and they played almost every Sunday until my dad unexpectedly passed away this past August. But I know that he was proud of me and he always supported everything that I did.
Jessica: And when you first became interested in teaching, were you interested in teaching young students?
Jennifer: No, not at all. I really didn't know what to do with them. Their constant needs and interruptions. It was very perplexing. At UNT, where I went to school, they offer a parent-child music class for the community and they hire music students like me to come teach the classes. So I started working there every Saturday and I loved it. I loved being around the babies, the kids and it just seemed so natural and easy. But I never thought that I would be good enough to do it on my own. It took me a while to grow into the kind of person who could do that kind of teaching. So if you're not there yet, don't worry about it. You know, everybody has to go through their growth and I had to go through lots of growth professionally and personally to become the teacher that I am today.
Once I found out about First Steps of Music, I don't want to teach any other age because I understand now the importance, the transformation that takes place in the brain and all the stuff that's going on and um, and how revitalizing it is. It's fun for me to teach it. I love doing it.
Jessica: And I love since we work together, I get to see at least the outcomes. I don't always get to see in your room, but when I pass by and I see you working with kids, you're just amazing at what you do. So I just, it seems like such a great fit for you.
Jennifer: Yeah, it's very joyful. It's a joyful place to be.
Jessica: Yeah, but it took work to get there like the rest of us. So how often do you see students and then how long are your classes?
Jennifer: I see classes every day. Kindergarten and Pre-K every day for thirty minutes. And we have another group called Primer and they come three times a week. So it's really...
Jessica: Amazing.
Jennifer: Yeah, amazing. They put, the school puts a lot of emphasis on arts education, especially music, and understands the importance of music, especially for the little ones.
Jessica: Yeah, that's great. So tell us about this age. What are some typical behaviors, strengths, challenges of these young students?
Jennifer: Well, first of all, they're just precious. And I have one of my own here in Kindergarten and then I have another one that's a baby over at PDO (Parent's Day Out). At this age, they're just precious and I get to see them every day which really helps me build relationships with them and get to know their sweet little personalities. I sometimes forget how little they are until I hear them singing on a recording. When I hear their little voices, I think 'Oh my goodness they're so little!'
The strengths of this age: They'll try anything if it's a game. They don't have those inhibitions like we do. If they know they'll all get a turn, they want to try it. Like instruments or playing a game or singing a solo. And they must perceive that you're fair. So um one thing I like to do to be fair is to write down names of who has had a turn. Then I don't forget the next day who had a turn because it can be a really big problem.
Some of the challenges: Impulsive. Short attention span. NO filter. And you must be very intentional about how you phrase your instructions. We don't want to take the joy out of making music by making a drag though so, um, you've really got to think about how you're phrasing things. And pick your repertoire and things that are going to spark joy for you as well as for them.
Jessica: Yeah. Great, great idea. And what can we expect young children to do musically?
Jennifer: Young children can sing in tune with some training. Some of them come to me that way, but most of them need just a little training to find their singing voice. They can keep a steady beat one at a time or all together in a group. They can move in artful ways. They can recite rhymes with expression and they can move creatively with some guidance.
Jessica: So they can be musicians?
Jennifer: Yup
Jessica: Yeah
Jennifer: They can be musicians.
Jessica: I agree and so how do you guide students towards singing independently?
Jennifer: I follow the Dr. Feierabend approach. The teacher sings, the students listen. Then the teacher sings and the group sings it back. The teacher sings or the groups sings and a soloist sings. And the most learning happens when you are singing by yourself so those solos are very important.
And he calls it the 4X4 rule. It helps ensure they're ready to sing alone. Four repetitions of the song within four consecutive lessons. So, for example, we're doing Old Texas. It's an echo call-and-response song. I sing it; they sing it back. I sing it; they sing it back. But after four repetitions, we move on and then the next day we do it again, but this time I might have solos. So I sing it and they sing into a pretend microphone. And it's a really big deal. They really enjoy it and they want to sing a solo because we do it this way. Enticing them with a real or pretend microphone will get even your most timid singers to try it. We use puppets all the time. I hold the puppet; they make it sing. Incentives like special stamps or stickers. And my favorite way to do it is recording them with an app I use called Seesaw.
You must insist that they use their nice singing voices. If you use a silly voice, you don't get a do-over and you miss a turn. And that's really sad. Before recording, though, I'll remind them about the rules for solo singing. You've got to stand still, only sing when it's your turn, and use your singing voice, not your silly voice. And no laughing. That's a big deal for me. I don't want them to be laughing at other kids because then those kids don't want to sing and it translates later into Lower School music and they don't want to sing because their friend laughed at them in Kindergarten so that's a big deal and I really stress that. I warn them that I'll delete the recording and try again some other day if they don't follow the rules. Then I follow through. So no one wants to mess it up once they know that.
And at this age and stage, I accept all efforts. So if I sing and they speak back, I say 'Thank you!' If they sing it too low, 'Thank you!' If they sing it perfectly, 'Thank you!' But I'm making a mental note of those who could do it and I'm going to go back and listen to the recording to double check and this will make your assessment a lot easier.
Jessica: Yeah. I like that 4x4 rule. I hadn't heard that before. So what are some ways if the students aren't matching pitch that you can help them find their singing voice?
Jessica: So you've got a lot of nice classroom management strategies that you use with students. Part of it, I think, is your consistency and you just do what you say, which can be easier said than done. But what are some of the other classroom management strategies that you use with students?
Jennifer: Well, you try to make the lesson so engaging and interesting that there's not time for that misbehavior or that tuning out. But it doesn't always happen. Sometimes you teach something and it bombs or, you know, it just doesn't go the way you want it to. In these instances, I've found that thinking out loud and scanning the room to see who is doing what you asked really works well. So 'I wonder who's standing in their own space quietly watching me?' A lot of these tips I gleaned from the classroom teachers. So if you're one whose struggling to find and communicate to the kids what you want them to do, ask the classroom teachers because they've got so many great ideas and that's what I do. Call and response chants work well. Um, like, I know there's a few out there like:
Teacher: Mac and cheese
Students: Everybody freeze
Things that get them to say it back to you really work. Having the students echo you works really well. So for example I'll say, "Repeat after me..."
T: I will walk
S: I will walk
T: I will not make noise
S: I will not make noise
T: Yeehaw!
S: Yeehaw!
You can just throw in some funny stuff to and they like that.
Jessica: It's fun.
Jennifer: Yeah! It keeps it light and humorous and it's not so... you don't get bogged down in "oh my gosh - the kids are not listening to me!" Just keep it fun.
Knock-knock jokes are always a hit with the little ones. But a warning, do not let them tell you knock-knock jokes because it will just keep going and going and going and going.
One thing that they're very concerned with, which I mentioned earlier, is fairness. So when someone has a turn, write it down. I write it down on my white board - grouped by class. And then the next day I can just quickly scan over the list and then make sure I'm calling new names. And they will remind you. It has helped a lot with the arguing and frustration that I used to experience a lot of. And I learned that tip from Dr. Feierabend himself.
Singing during transitions, especially lining up, helps with some of that. And every year I try to think of a fun new way to enter and exit the room. I know the first few years I played the ukulele and sang a song and my neighbor across the hall wanted to put cotton in her ears and close the door and crawl into her safe space because she heard it like ten times a day every day. And I have to admit I got tired of it too. So I had to think outside the box and come up with another idea and keep it fresh. And because I want to be a good neighbor. But this year I'm using a song to the tune of a song called Donkey Riding. And I heard it from Randy DeLelles, who sang it at a workshop, and when he sang it it was just so beautiful, but it's called Donkey Riding so... I sing it with these words like:
Time to line up at the door
walking quickly across the floor
We don't cut or push in line
We just wait we take our time
We will wait in our straight row
'til the teacher says, 'let's go'
We will wait in our straight row
'til the teacher says, 'let's go'
So it's a really cute melody that nobody's heard before, at least at here. It's long enough that it gives them time to get in line. And then if I have any issues, I'm just, as I'm singing, I'm just moving this little hand and moving this kid here and you know, all the little things that we have to do. And they wait for me to say, 'Let's go!' and we go!
I used to sing Time for Music by Lynn Kleiner:
Time for Music here we go - uh-huh, uh-huh
I tried to change it up, like I said, and this year I've also started doing a march as they walk in the room. And I've learned this from Dr. Feierabend also:
I do give smellies. You've probably heard of those. It's scented lip balm. And you rub it on the backs of their hands when they're in lines. So they just face the front and put a hand on their head. And as I'm going down the line, I just give them a little dab of that. And they're quiet and they can smell it with their lips together, just smell it on your hand. Then we're ready to go. But now that it's flu season, I try not to do that because inevitably a smelly becomes a licky.
Jessica: Oh yeah.
Jennifer: So we have to stop those for a while, but those are my best tips for classroom management.
Jessica: It takes a lot of organization and classroom management to keep up with young children and their needs. And I know because you see them so often you go through an enormous amount of material. So how do you stay organized with what has already been taught or what you're teaching?
Jennifer: Most of what I do in class is from the First Steps of Music Lesson Plan Book. Dr. Feierabend has already laid out - I can't remember exactly how many - but several semesters of lessons. And it gets me through most of the school year; probably until about March, not including holiday songs that I want to add in. I do keep up with my weekly lesson plans in Google Drive. I've made my own template that follows the eight step workout for First Steps of Music. And I use those slides to keep a bank of images and I organize them by type of activity so songs, warm-ups, movement exploration, fingerplays. They're all categorized and I use pictures to help students associate that picture with that song. So they don't necessarily need to read to know what song is up next and it keeps me on track of what we're doing in the lesson. I just click to the next slide. Oh - it's time for an echo song. Oh - it's time for a simple song! And they can see by the picture what song it is and are ready. I keep that all in just one file on Google Drive. One big file. And then I keep a separate file of lesson plans in a folder in Google Drive. I have several other resources. I just keep them on the shelf next to me and reach over randomly and I used to know a song about Valentine's day or President's Day and it's from Randy Delelles and Jeff Kriske. So I'm gonna pull that book down and look for that. And things that I don't use or haven't used since I've been here, I put it in a cupboard and I keep it for a couple years. And if I still don't use it, I pass it on to someone who can use it. But that's mainly what I use.
There's also a Facebook Group, the Feierabend Fundamentals, that I use almost every day. I'm looking through there because there are so many great ideas and so many posts every day from teachers all over the world really who are sharing their ideas for what they are doing with these songs. And so, that's a big resource for me, but mostly to stay organized I just use Google Drive a lot.
Jessica: Yes, I love Google Drive.
Jennifer: Me too.
Jessica: And you also have your students perform for families. How do you put together a program for parents that demonstrates the learning in your classroom?
Jennifer: I love programs and I love to use a picture book that's popular with that age group or one that I like and want to introduce them to. I try to have at least one type of activity from the First Steps of Music Workout for each character or page in the story. So I'm talking like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, My Many Colored Days, you know, those type of picture books. And animals are the easiest, seem to be the easiest program and there's so many songs about animals and fingers-lays and games. So when I'm putting together a program, I usually like to start with a picture book and then I will assign a song for each character in the book. And I ask myself, "what's going to be easiest for them to learn and what's going to fit easiest with the songs that they already know?" Because up until this point, having music every day, they've learned many, many songs and I don't necessarily want to teach them all new stuff for a program because that's hard, number one, and number two, if they're just learning it and then have to present it, it's probably not going to be as polished as if they had already internalized it and learned it very well.
So I like to pick a book and the criteria for choosing a book is it has to appeal to a wide adults and children. And Dr. Feierabend likes to say it's child-like not childish. And it's still delicious after thirty repetitions. These are books that have been around for a long time that people love. And most of them must have a sense of wonder, make believe, and fantasy. And you've got yourself a winner if you find one like that. And I'm always looking for new ideas.
Jessica: How do you create the transitions between the pieces to keep students going? 'Cause they're so young and there's so many of them.
Jennifer: Well really it started from Lynn Kleiner. She was a great inspiration for that because I believe I went to a workshop with her and I've seen her at TMEA and at AOSA. And she just has a way of making things flow from one thing to another and telling a story. I know that a lot of teachers do that, but she just has a magical way with it. And so I tried to do what she does. So I started to play with the ukulele which she inspired me to do. Thank you Lynn! For my first couple years here at Good Shepherd, I would play the ukulele in-between sets or play a drum to get them to the next thing. But since I'm using books now, the easiest thing to do is just to have a student read the page because it's a picture book so it's going to have a small sentence that's very manageable for a very young child to be able to memorize and say into a microphone. And then that gives them something to do because not every child wants to play an instrument and not every child wants to sing a solo or do a special dance so they get to have a speaking part so that's totally fine with them if it's fine with me.
Jessica: Yeah.
Jennifer: So I'll assign the lines and then it usually works out so that every student in the entire grade level gets to do something special. Like I mentioned, playing an instrument, using a special prop. Last year I made bird wings and they did a Move-It to classical music and one class got to wear the wings and that was a big deal for them. You could have them say a line or sing a small solo. We practice three or four times, the whole thing, before we present it to the parents and then school so they really get those transitions down.
Jessica: Can you share what is First Steps of Music and then also a little bit about John Feierabend?
Jennifer: Absolutely! First Steps in Music is a music curriculum to optimize children's musical development. Dr. Feierabend is the man who developed this curriculum. He is a former music educator. he's a former professor. He is still at the Hartt School of Music and he teaches a class there every summer. He developed this curriculum because there seems to be a lack in quality music education in literature and curriculum.
Jessica: Particularly with younger ages?
Jennifer: With younger, yeah. A lot of times when people are looking at their music programs, they think, "It's not really important at five. Why do we need Kindergarten music?" And that's what he had run into. He started to just kind of notice that and then lots of things happened that pushed him in this way, but eventually he has done so much to research in the area of child development and music and movement and how that relates to childhood development. And it's just amazing. And I know that it took him years to compile all this stuff. It was a huge undertaking, but what he has come up with is that everyone can be tuneful, beatful, and artful. It's an 8-part musical workout that with time helps children develop their sense of beat, they get comfortable singing and moving, and they express as well sense the beauty and emotion in music that they hear.
There is a new podcast: The Tuneful Beatful Artful Music Teacher available out there for all of you to listen to and I would highly recommend it because I'm not doing it justice. You've got to listen to Dr. Feierabend and Dr. Strong talk about the First Steps in Music curriculum and why he started it. It's just amazing.
Jessica: It is. I just listened to their episode about Conversational Solfege. I'm about half way through the episode. It's a great new podcast.
Jennifer: Absolutely. So Dr. Feierabend is one of the leading authorities on child development in the fields of music and movement. He has painstakingly researched child development, the brain, how children learn music, and he has collected hundreds of folk songs from our culture - from America. And his inspiration was Kodály. Kodály was from Hungary and in Hungary, they do schooling a little differently, but the main thing that he learned was that we need to use our mother tongue to teach our children our music. So our music sounds a little different than Hungarian music. For example, we have a lot of mi-re-do and 6/8, whereas in Hungary, they don't.
The purpose of First Steps is that it's designed to be aural and if a child who is three comes to you and they can't sing in tune, that's probably because they haven't been sung to. It's because of neglect. And one thing that Dr. Feierabend said at a workshop that I went to was "Could you imagine not talking to your child for the first three years of life?" Absolutely not! I mean I can't imagine not singing to a baby either, but I guess there are some people out there who do not feel comfortable singing.
Jessica: I was going to say, that takes, it goes back to our music teachers and as we've gone along and become adults, it's like - I think - some people get fearful that they don't have the best voice or that they're not musicians so then they don't sing and it's like "No! Sing anyway, you know..."
Jennifer: Yes. And it's a fact that not everyone that we teach is going to go on to be a music educator or a musician. And about 90% of the people that we teach will not. So what are we doing for the other 90% is what First Steps in Music is all about. It's helping everyone achieve that musical ability. And not necessarily being talented at it. Just being comfortable doing it. And starting at this age is perfect because as they move on to Lower School and Middle School they've already done all these things and they're not inhibited.
Delaying literacy but developing musicality is what it's all about. So we don't want to teach them how to read music yet. That doesn't make sense. We want to fill them with hundreds of songs and rhymes and fun things just like you would if a child was learning how to read. You would not read them just the same primer book over and over again. You would read them lots and lots of books and build their vocabulary and build their imagination so that's kind of what this is all about.
Most learning takes place individually. So with solo singing, that's when most learning takes place is with solo singing. And there are lots of opportunities to sing solo with this curriculum. And another purpose is to make classical music a necessity of life. I can't imagine life without Beethoven's Fifth or without this beautiful music out there and I don't want it to go away. I want to turn on that next generation of people to that beautiful music and we do that too with movement to classical music. Dr. Feierabend calls them Move-Its.
Five years old is the most important year for brain and music development. So if someone approaches you about getting rid of your Kindergarten music program, No! don't do that. It's the most important year for brain and music development.
Jessica: It's wild. Well they're like sponges. I mean, they're taking in so much information and what does it mean to be tuneful, beatful, and artful?
Jennifer: I have posters on my wall here and I found them on the Feierabend Fundamentals Facebook Page for free! But um, to be tuneful means to sing with a proper head voice and to be able to think tunes. Beatful means feeling and moving to the big and small beats in music, particularly groups of twos and threes. And artful means responding to the artfulness in music and to be able to sense the beauty and emotion in the music we hear.
Jessica: I like that. So how do you create all of those things within your students within a thirty minute class. Like, for example, can you walk us through kind-of an order of what musical experiences you give to students in a single class?
Jennifer: Sure. We will do the 8 steps workout. I will show you what that looks like. As students are coming in, we're keeping the beat and marching to a tempo, to a rhyme that I've already taught. So that's Beat Keeping. They're coming in beat keeping. You could also play classical music. There's a certain range of tempo that's appropriate for this age. You don't want too slow and you don't want too fast. To find their appropriate tempo. And then you can play a game called Here-There. We do this often. You tap one arm "Here-there-here-there" and you can do it in groups of twos and threes. And that would start the lesson. Then we would move into vocal exploration which is finding that singing voice. And there are so many fun poems and toys and things that you can use to get up in the head voice and they will be right there with you. They love it.
And then after they find their head voice, we do a simple echo song: I sing, you sing it right back. This week we're doing Old Texas.
I'm going to leave (I'm going to leave)
Old Texas now (Old Texas now)
After that we do a simple song, which is, a simple song is a little bit longer and it has a little bit more range, but it's still simple enough for them to remember it and it puts it in musical syntax so it's like a sentence. And they can eventually sing it on their own. An example of a simple song would be:
It's simple enough and short enough that they can remember it and do it independently. After a simple song we would go into the most important part of the lesson which I admit sometimes I don't get to, is arioso. Arioso is creating your own tunes. For most of the beginning of the year, it's the teacher demonstrating and encouraging the students to just make sounds and do improvisatory things like with cow puppets we'll moo back and forth. Or with whales - we'll sing back and forth like a whale would. Or with hummingbirds, we'll hum. Later on, we can add words to that like a familiar nursery rhyme and we sing a tune to Humpty Dumpty that we make up. And then later on they're making up their own songs. And that's the ultimate goal is to create their own music.
Then we'll move into movement exploration or a warm-up like a fun game. Yesterday with Kindergarten we played Walking on Eggshells and Imaginary Drums so they pretend to walk on eggshells and when I play the tambourine, they freeze and pretend to play imaginary drums. So it's kind of the opposite of light movement versus heavy movement.
And then we take that idea and go into movement for form and expression. And they are fingerplays, circle games, and move-its - what Dr. Feierabend calls Move-Its -that explore those ways to move.
And a move-it is prescribed movements that he and Peggy Lyman created to go with classical music and then later on, because the kids have heard those songs so often, the classical music so often, that when they hear it later on in life, they'll day "Oh! I remember that" and it happens to me all the time. I remember listening to things when I was a kid and here it comes back. And it also kind of instills within them artfulness and the love for the classical music which is what we want.
After then after movement for form and expression, we can do some more beat keeping with a game or with classical music. And to finish the lesson, I would sit in my big red chair, say, "come closer," and sing them a story. And I have song tale books or I could just do it from memory
Like today we did Had a Little Rooster and I know that the most recent songtale book from Dr. Feierabend is Had a Little Rooster. And I'm waiting for my copy and I can't wait to get it!
Jessica: Is it already out?
Jennifer: It's out. It came out at TMEA.
Jessica: Okay.
Jennifer: And that's it! And then we would line up and do it all over again for the next class.
Jessica: So you're rotating through activities roughly like every 4 minutes. Every 3-4 minutes? Is that about right?
Jennifer: Yeah, it's really quick. It's designed to be quick because you know that attention span, but also I don't want to give everybody a turn because they need to have something to look forward to next time and that's part of that incentive for classroom management also. So like, "Oh! We're going to do it again tomorrow!" You know you've got that to look forward to.
Jessica: And they enjoy the repetition.
Jennifer: Oh they absolutely do.
Jessica: The more familiar.
Jennifer: Yeah, we all like to sing things that we're familiar with and that we know. We don't like to pretend to sing along to something that we don't know. And they will try to do that too.
Jessica: Some great ideas for First Steps and there's all sorts of books, right? Because there's the First Steps Curriculum, but then there's Call and Response books and there's Fingerplay books and he's got the larger curriculum book, but then you can also get some of the more individualized to fill in.
Jennifer: Yes, he has Book of Call and Response, Book of Songtales, Book of Fingerplays, Book of Beat Motions, and they're all available on the GIA website. GIA is the publisher that he uses.
Jessica: I'll post a link in there.
Jennifer: There are also lots of handouts that he's used at his workshops and lots of good resources on that website.
Final Questions:
1) Tea, Coffee or Something else that suits your fancy - coffee of course! I like really dark roast with half and half and a little bit of sugar
2) Song/Artist/Genre - So many! Lately - Bob Marley, Bob Wills Music, Elliott Park, Imagine Dragons, Big Block Sing Song called Cat, Octopus Garden by the Beatles... changes every day
3) What you do every day (or try to do) - I try to read a bible verse and commit it to memory. I use the bible app - YouVersion. And I try to have a system to put things away when we enter the house after school. Reading book "Clutter-Free Academy" by Kathi Lipp. Facebook: Clutter-Free Academy
4) Get in touch with you -
Twitter: @jross_gses
Facebook: Jennifer Ross
Or find me on the Feierabend Fundamentals Facebook page (many of her ideas can be found there!)
Twitter: @jross_gses
Facebook: Jennifer Ross
Or find me on the Feierabend Fundamentals Facebook page (many of her ideas can be found there!)
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