Early Childhood Education

Learning Experience Template

Name: Molly Loch Lesson Title: Rhythm Sticks Lesson for Toddlers
Date: Grade Level: Toddler Circle one: ECE PKSN
Standard(s)/Guideline(s):
Creative Development 1.b. Expresses self creatively through music and dance.
Standard(s)/Guideline(s):
Physical Development 1.a. Develops competency in a variety of locomotor and non-locomotor skills
Pre-assessment of current knowledge:
Know if students have used rhythm sticks before, know the motor skills of all the children in your classroom.

Instructional Objectives (1-2) Assessment of Student Learning Learning Experience

One/Two Assessed Instructional Identify Evidence: (What will you collect or record as data Academic Language:
Objective(s): The student will be to demonstrate students have met your objective(s) and -Rhythm Sticks
able to... skill?) -Rhythm

The students will be able to use Teachers will collect data during the lesson. They will take
their rhythm sticks to match the marks of each student and how their skills are during the
movement of the rhythm sticks in lesson.
the song.

Program Monitoring: (How will you aggregate or compile Procedural steps:

One Assessed Developmental your evidence into a class or group view?) -Pass out rhythm sticks to the class and review/tell them the
Skill: rules that go along with them (no playing while the teacher is
I will look at the class average as well as make sure that talking, no hitting your friends etc.)
Motor Skills any students who need additional help can receive that. -Have students do a practice round tapping one stick at a
time on the ground to the beat, tapping both sticks on the
ground, and tapping the sticks together
-The first song we will do is this is the way we tap our sticks
(refer to video linked below for song, but do not play video
Safety Considerations: Differentiation: this sone will be teacher lead.)
-The next song we will do is the rhythm stick rock (refer to
Students using the rhythm Be aware of students who have disabilities that might video linked below for song, but do not play video this sone
sticks in an unsafe way (hitting hinder their ability to use the rhythm sticks. Have a teacher will be teacher lead. We will also not do the entire 4 minutes
themselves, hitting others, or aide use a hand over hand technique to help these of this song)
putting them in their mouths students with the rhythm sticks. -Then I will let the kids freestyle with their rhythm sticks for
etc.) around 30 seconds
-We will then put them away
**We will do each song enough times so the students can tap

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Learning Experience Template

along, but not too many times that the students get bored**

Authentic Materials: (Describe authentic real-life, hands-on

materials.)
-Rhythm sticks

Adult Roles:
-Help students with rhythm sticks
-guide songs
-make sure students are using their rhythm sticks in a safe
way.

Resources & References:

This is the way we tap our sticks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aohQFZhihLA

Rhythm stick rock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s1RH0JYmAQ
Reflection: (What have you learned about your students? How will this inform future instruction?)

For my final lesson plan I chose to adapt the lesson plan I originally made for toddlers. This was the music lesson plan I made, and I chose to

focus on rhythm sticks for this lesson. In my original lesson plan I was going to have the students practice tapping, tap to two songs led by me, and

then freestyle for the last part. I honestly did not have to change much for this lesson to adapt to the preschool aged students. It was also helpful that

this lesson was originally for toddlers because when I taught this lesson the Skyriders had two students who were transitioning from the toddler

rooms to the preschool rooms. This way I was able to have two forms of the same lesson that could help the students who are different ages.

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Learning Experience Template

I implemented the lesson today on our last day of lab and on the day of the Spring Fling. Energy was very high in the Skyriders room after

snack time, so being able to do this lesson was a great way for the students to calm down a little bit and refocus. The lesson went pretty much as

planned with a few changes that I had to make while I was doing the lesson. The first road bump we had was the students were having a hard time

staying in their spots and were getting too close to each other, which was able to be fixed when I put dots on the carpet to signify each student's

individual spot. This is what they do during group time in the morning which I was unaware of. I then made a game time decision to change the first

song from, “This is the way we tap our sticks” to a rhythm stick version of “Old McDonald”. I chose to do this because the students were being very

vocal and with “Old McDonald” I was able to give each student a chance to pick an animal that was on the farm. I also chose to adapt the “Rhythm

Stick Rock” song slightly to incorporate more movement because all the students were very high energy and it seemed like they needed more

movement to stay engaged. The last decision I made during the lesson was to not give the students freestyle time at the end of the lesson. At this

point in the lesson there had already been some accidental incidents of students hitting each other with the rhythm sticks and I felt that the freestyle

time would cause some more problems, so I decided to scrap it. I think the changes I made during the lesson heavily influenced the success of the

lesson.

If I was going to teach this lesson again, I think I would change a few things. I know this is not something I could change under these

circumstances, but in the future I would do it in the morning when the class has group time. I think that since the students aren’t used to having group

time in the afternoon it threw them off a little bit. I also think I would use the iPad to play the songs on YouTube while I was leading the songs. I

wasn’t sure if I was able to do that and I am not very musically talented, so the singing wasn’t as energetic as it would’ve been if there was also

music playing in the background. Teaching this lesson plan has taught me a few things. First being that it is very important to be able to change

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Learning Experience Template

things as you go when you are teaching. We have only had practice teaching the lessons we made to other college students and that has never resulted

in me needing to change anything I planned to do during the lesson. During this lesson alone I had to change three things which I think was really

good practice for what real teaching will look like next year in my student teaching placement. I also learned that it was much easier than I should to

incorporate more than one form of art into one lesson. My lesson was decently short, and I was able to have a music and dance component in there.

Another thing I learned was that I should probably think about what might go wrong or different variables that would play into things I might have to

change before I go into the lesson. I am pretty good at working on the fly, but I guess I didn’t consider that preschoolers are a lot less predictable

during lessons than older college students.

Overall, I think this lesson went very well and I was able to learn a lot from it. We really have had no practice working with students in

elementary school, so this was a really great opportunity. It taught me a lot of new things that I didn’t even think would be relevant in the lesson and I

am glad we were able to do it.

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 Early Childhood Education
Learning Experience Template

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