When the feet hit the ground . . .

. . . or should it be "when the fingers hit the keys?"  Either way, we've past the mid-point of the race (trimester) and are making steady progress.

I like teaching by giving students questions to think about, or by giving students examples/info and challenging them to come up with hypotheses.  Of course, these hypotheses may not be earthshaking when working with elementary students, but it was fun this morning to review the values of whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes, both the count value and the fractional value, before presenting A New Note and asking for the students' Best Guesses as to both the count value and the fractional value.  And Mr Third Grader came through with flying colors.  "An eighth note gets half a count," he said.

And *that* is how I managed to slip one of my old favorites, The Erie Canal into today's lesson.  "All right, students, listen to this song and raise your hand when you think you can hear the eighth notes." 

I wonder if I can find anything redeeming in Bill Grogan's Goat?