Class 3 students strolled into the bright music room, dropped their newly acquired library books by the door and took a seat on the rainbow-colored carpet. At the direction of LS music teacher Megan Himel, they began playing a rhythmic beat through snaps and claps while singing the words “Good day, Good day to you.”
The musicians continued to warm up their vocal cords by sliding from high and low pitch and practicing major and minor scales using solfege hand signs. Each of the seven solfege notes (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do) correlates to a specific hand sign that can be used while singing, reminders of which hung on a poster conveniently located at the front of the room.
“Do you remember the new song we learned yesterday?” asked Ms. Himel. “Be my echo.” Softly, she began to sing:
“All things shall perish from under the sky
Music alone shall live (x3)
Never to die.”
The students repeated the lines before splitting into two groups to begin harmonizing.
“Good job!” praised Ms. Himel. “Now let’s try for the tree!” In the back of the room, a rainbow tree made from colored paper lined the wall. When any Lower School class masters a song – by singing correct notes, rhythms, words, entrances, etc. – they can add it to their designated color-coded tree branch.
The students sang melodiously and, when finished, Ms. Himel clapped her hands. “What do you think? Were the parts balanced?”
The class hesitated before one said, “I’m not sure because our group has 10 people and the other only has 8.”
“That’s a good point but even though there’s a different number of students per group, the sound was balanced.” To help underscore this notion, she compared singing to making chocolate chip cookies. “If you use the same amount of ingredients for everything – chocolate chips, flour and sugar – the cookies wouldn’t come out so well!”
With that, the students began an enthusiastic drum roll as Ms. Himel stapled a new sheet of purple paper onto their branch.
“Now, I need all of your eyes up here,” she said as she returned to the front of the carpet. “What language do you think this song is in?” As she sang a cheerful melody, students raised their hands to offer guesses of German, Italian and Yiddish.
"Yiddish is so close!” Ms. Himel exclaimed. “It’s actually in Hebrew and it’s a little bit of a silly song.”
Appearing on the board behind their teacher was a small cartoon goat with the words “Yesh lanu tayish.” (We have a goat) These particular words were not in English or Hebrew but instead were written using transliteration, the method of mapping from one system of writing to another based on phonetic similarity to help aid in understanding pronunciation. (The Hebrew symbols were also on the board.)
With Ms. Himel’s guidance, the students began to sing along:
“Yesh lanu tayish,
La tayish yesh zakan, (the goat has a beard)
Velo arba raglayim (and he has four legs)”
After a few minutes of practice, Ms. Himel instructed the students to stand in two parallel lines on the orange and blue rug squares. It was time for a special dance!
Ms. Himel and a volunteer (the leaders of each line), grasped hands and sashayed down the middle of the group and back, twirled around to the outside of their line and headed to the end. Once there, they held their hands up, palms almost touching.
With the rest of their lines in tow, students shimmied through the man-made archway and the process repeated with the two new line leaders.
“It’s time for a challenge!” announced Ms. Himel after all students had a chance to lead. “Can you sing the song twice in a row as loud as you can – while dancing – without help from me?” The students responded with a resounding yes and began chanting the words with mighty voices.
To conclude this entertaining lesson, the third graders sang “Hot Chocolate,” (a popular LS tune) in attempt to add it to their tree. “Last time we still needed to work on our harmonies and coming in on time. Let’s see if we can get it perfect!” Ms. Himel encouraged.
After a strong performance – and another purple square added – the students happily packed up their belongings and headed out to their next class.
