Pre-K

General Music Practicum

Curriculum Portfolio

Paul McKay
St. Mary’s School; Canton, NY
Site Supervisor: Dr. Marsha Baxter
Spring 2017
Introduction
Before teaching can begin, it is important to
analyze the possibilities and opportunities that lie
within a potential curriculum design.

Guiding Questions for Curriculum Development:

•How to create a contextualized lesson plan for
Pre-K students?
•What are Pre-K students’ musical ability?
•Where do we, the music educators, even begin with
teaching music to Pre-K students?

Who Are the Students?

• Pre-Kindergarten, transitional year between Daycare and
K-12 education
• 4-year old students
• Functional role of early childhood education
• Social development, physical development, emotional
development, cognitive development
• Focus on preparing students to start becoming
contextual thinkers before entering Kindergarten and
K-12 schooling
• Explain to march, stomp, simple physical motions
Bluebird
Classroom experiences first began this semester while Bluebird, bluebird
singing the classroom song “Bluebird.” This prompted through my window
students to incorporate movement and singing from the Bluebird, bluebird
very beginning of the semester, something that drove my through my window
curriculum design. Oh Johnny aren’t you tired?

To my surprise in the classroom, the students were

already familiar with this classroom song, and were
ecstatic to sing, move, and create.

Through “Bluebird,” students were given an

understanding of classroom expectations for the rest of
the semester. With students already having previous
experience and knowledge of this specific classroom song,
I was able to develop more complex ideas within my
teaching. Over the course of three lessons, students
began to compose their own renditions of the tune by
changing the color of the bird they were singing about
(bluebird, pink-bird, yellowbird). During these first three
lessons, I began to realize just how capable of music
makers by Pre-K students actually are. They love to sing,
move, and create—and after seeing this, I was able to
develop a deep and meaningful music curriculum.
 I believe it is essential to create relevancy in
relation to students’ everyday lives and cultures,
especially at a young age. I chose the song
“Blackbird” by The Beatles as a doorway in, for
relevancy that will deeply impact my students.

While first introducing the tune, students were

invited to lay on the ground and close their eyes
to imagine the blackbird. Through this, any
classroom distractions were eliminated, and
students were able to expand upon a basic
understanding of the mood of music, and the
interpretation of song lyrics.

The lessons of “Blackbird” truly opened my eyes

to the world of meaningful and powerful music
lessons in the eyes of my four-year-old students.

Blackbird #2

Blackbird Curriculum Project

 Themes of Social Justice
By using “Blackbird” by The Beatles as a musical focal point, I
wanted students to explore basic concepts of social justice and
civil rights in an elementary, yet comprehensive way. With
this, my teaching was able to expand upon relevancy in the
classroom from a sociocultural context.

“Blackbird” by The Beatles was written by Paul McCartney in

reaction to the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
The metaphor of a blackbird is used quite literally to represent
a black woman facing struggles of equality and civil rights
during this turbulent time of American and world history.

The reality and topics that were faced during the American
Civil Rights Movement can be heavy, and can be difficult to
understand—but they are still issues and discussions that are
relevant in our society today. Although only four-years-old, I
believe it is still critical for each student to begin to
understand, experience, and discuss these issues in order to
experience music in a profound and meaningful way.

Over the course of several lessons, students explored topics of

social justice by discussing, depicting, and creating different
ways a blackbird can be tied down in a cage, and what is like
to experience freedom.
I discovered that through multiple modes of expression, the students were able to develop a deeper
understanding of the song lyrics of “Blackbird.” When students were given the opportunity to draw
and color, they were able to visualize their interpretation of the lyrics. In later lessons, students were
invited to express the lyrics through physical gesture. Through physical gesture and free movement,
they were able to more thoroughly discuss the lyrics in class.

“Art, freedom, and creativity will

change society faster than politics”
—Victor Pinchuk

Before the semester even

started, I wish I had known
that by providing each Pre-K
student with a large amount
of creative freedom, it would
be an extremely positive asset
for the overall learning
environment. If students are
given basic frameworks and a
basic understanding for
learning, they will be able to
be independent musical
learners.
Relating to Lori Custodero and Flow in the Music Classroom
As my personal teaching philosophy has developed and evolved, I keep
coming back to the teaching pedagogy of Lori Custodero, and her
writings regarding the concept of flow in the music classroom.

“With multiple vantage points for goal perception and

achievement, as well as opportunities for clear and
immediate feedback. The music making they engaged
in required merging action and awareness, with the
individual as the locus of control” —Lori Custodero

If I am able to provide students with an equal educational
framework of challenge and enjoyment, the musical
experience will be extremely rich and long-lasting for each
student. Through the experience of flow, musical students
will be able to conclude to a deeper musical, sociocultural,
and personal understanding of themselves and the world
around them.
“The happiest people spend much time in
a state of flow, the state in which people
are so involved in an activity that nothing
else seems to matter; the experience itself
is so enjoyable that people do it even at
great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it”
—Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi
On the Horizon:
My Music Education Journey
I have learned an incredible amount about music education and
who I am as a teacher in my Pre-K General Music Practicum. As I
have grown as an educator, I have realized that creative freedom
will allow for enormous musical and educational results. Pre-K
students are so much more musically capable than one might
expect, and if you give them a rich musical framework, each
student will be able to explore, interpret, and discover deep
musical understandings for each lesson.

As my music education journey progresses into the

future, I want to continue to explore different music
pedagogies that include concepts of freedom, flow,
and human expression; and the ways that it connects
music and culture. I believe that music can have a
profound impact on the way we view the world
around us. I personally believe that every general
music curriculum needs to be critical in allowing
children to explore their world, their peers, and
themselves as individuals, in order to mature as
musicians, students, and human beings in the ever-
progressing world we face today.