Observation

Jamie Procarione


On Wednesday, February 05, 2014 I observed 2 music classes at the Platteville Middle
School taught by Marcia Russell. The first class that I observed was a 5
th
grade music class at
9:50am. In the classroom, there were keyboards set up in the middle of it. There were enough
for a whole class. Of course, the keyboards had headphones so each student could only hear
themselves playing. Around the room on the walls there were music posters about the treble and
bass clefs, and she has some vocabulary words. The vocabulary words were rhythm, form,
texture, timbre, melody, harmony, expression. On the white board she had the following written:
Rhythm- How the beat is organized, Form How sections are organized, and Expression-
Dynamic and Temp. She also had labeled that the dynamic is how loud or soft it is and temp is
how fast or slow it is. There was also a smart board on the front wall and some cabinets on the
side of the room. On top of the cabinets were looked to be drums. The rest of the room was kind
of bare. There were some bulletin boards that had nothing on them. Ive seen a lot of music
rooms and I think this one was the most bare.
The first class was 5
th
grade. They started out by singing the notes of the treble clef. It
goes like this: EGDBF are the names of the lines on the treble clef and they repeated it a
couple times. I thought this was a really good way for students to memorize. The teacher gave
them a handout that had 2 music staffs on it. On one of the staffs, they had to label each line of
the staff for treble clef. On the second one, they had to label each space of the staff for treble
clef. Once the teacher checked it over, they were able to start practicing the piano. They were
playing from a book and were all at different levels. Once they mastered a song, the teacher goes
and listens to it, and then marks it on their notecard, and then they can move on to the next level.
Also during this, some kids were playing Staff Wars on the smart board. It was a game that
showed different notes on a staff and the kids had to pick what note that was. It would get faster
as they kept getting them right. This is a great way for kids to memorize notes. At the end of the
class, the students who behaved well and had all of their materials received punches on a card.
The second class was a 4
th
grade class that was finishing up their piano unit. When the
kids came in they had their coats on and were extremely rowdy. They might have just come
from recess but they were extremely loud and they really misbehaved the whole class period.
The teacher gave them a piece of paper with some notes on it and they had to clap the notes, and
show the teacher they had the right rhythm. Once they did that, they were able to practice a little
bit on the pianos. Then, they went over how to be a good audience and what to do when you are
performing. They then performed songs for the class individually. They were really excited to
perform for the class and for the teacher. What bothered me about their performances is that the
teacher did not correct their bad posture when playing. I know they are just 4
th
graders, but when
I started playing piano when I was 4 years old, posture was always a big thing to pay attention to.
I really enjoyed observing these two classes. I really think it taught me a lot and I really
saw a side of teaching I really never knew about. Ill be going into elementary education to be a
classroom teacher, not a full music teacher, but I think it was very beneficial to me to see a music
class.