10-13-11

Today was my last day leading song for awhile. Looking back, I think I have gotten a lot better at leading the group than I was at the beginning. There are so many random little things to remember that are still important nonetheless. Fortunately, after doing this for a couple weeks, the repetition finally helped me get almost everything right. I saw a lot of differences between leading the group of 10 students opposed to the group of just 5 students. When there was only 5 students who are nonverbal, I felt like I was pretty much singing alone up there with a couple of the teachers helping me, however it was fun to try different things to get them involved.  A benefit to the 5 children group was that it was definitely a lot easier to manage. With the 10 group, a lot of the children were more involved, so it definitely was fun to lead the group when you saw some singing along or being engaged. One thing I would change if I was leading song next week would probably to add a visual or something to involve the children more with Oats and Beans and Barley. Monday it was kind of a dud, and I really wanted to see how Thursday would go with the whole group. I added the part with clapping our hands because I felt like it would be able to help the children stay more involved. It helped to a degree with keeping the children involved, but that is something for me to look at next time I try to do a song like that when I am leading.