Something I love that my service learning teacher does is at the beginning of each lessons, she has a statement for the children to repeat after her, something like, "I can learn to read notes on a music staff," and then a related objective clearly listed underneath that statement on the first slide that she uses. That objective might be something like, "Learn where do, re, me, and sol are located on the music staff." I think she does this, in part, to keep herself on track for what the goals of the lessons are, but it also helps the students who can read to know what to expect as well. It's been fun to see how she integrates lots of standards into her lessons.
It's clear that she doesn't just focus on one standard in each lesson. She has a primary focus, but then is constantly integrating as many standards as she can using patterns, routines, and repetition. There's one song she does with the younger elementary grades called "We Are Dancing in the Forest". It's a fun little song about a group of children dancing in the forest, but there's a wolf that lives nearby and they don't want to get caught. All the children dance and sing this song while one student is the wolf, standing on the edge of the classroom until it's their turn to chase the students and "catch" them. So not only are the children learning songs, notes, and rhythms, they're also encouraged to experiment with body movement and expression related to the song. It's been fun to watch her effortlessly incorporate all these standards without the children feeling like they're just going through the conveyor belt of standards.
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