Playing Ukulele w/ the Kindergarten
May 1st, 2007 by vincebates
I was invited to spend half an hour with the kindergarten class today as part of their luau–end of year activity. They wanted some island-themed musical activities. So, I learned Lovely Hula Hands on the ukulele (following some uTube clips) and made up some hula-type movements to go along with the words of just the first two stanzas. We also sang Down By the Bay and Mama Don’t ‘Low. Of course, these aren’t “authentic” island songs, but currently my island repertoire is somewhat limited. I was surprised at how old the students seemed; already I have forgotten a bit about what it’s like to teach kindergarteners. It isn’t the same to interact with my own kids at home and teaching college doesn’t really keep me in touch with public school realities. So, I value this type of opportunity. A couple things that I didn’t like about the experience were, first, the teaching space was rather small so that when we played On the Bottom of the Sea it was difficult to “swim” around amongst the “seaweed” and, second, because it was an end-of-year activity there were a lot of parents there watching. Even after so many years of teaching music, it’s still more comfortable to teach when there aren’t a number of other adults around. Teaching is an art, but not necessarily a performance art. I mean, it wasn’t a big problem and I am confident in my abilities, it’s just nice to interact with the students w/o the issue of what others might think–positive or otherwise.
I’m really hoping to get a new ukulele for my birthday. I bought a $15 one a while back and I would like to play something now that has a fuller tone. I was amazed by this uTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puSkP3uym5k . I don’t know why, but when I see someone playing like that I want to be able to do it too. Oprah had William Macy on her show a while back and he played his uke. It was pretty cool and now Oprah, so I hear (http://nashukes.blogspot.com/), will be starting a uke club this fall. This, they say, will be the third wave of ukulele popularity within the past 100 years. It might be time for elementary teachers and middle school teachers to gear up for teaching this delightful and versatile instrument. In fact, someone will probably make some money providing materials and in-service training to music teachers…
