Reflections on Camp + 020710 Lesson Plan

Hey Guys, the camp was so successful that we are all doing posts on it. =) I’ll be focusing on the teaching of the canon aspect of the camp. We divided the choir into two groups, with Isaac and Me leading one group, and the Bens the other. For our group, we started by reinforcing the song Glory to God, and then me and Isaac demonstrated the canon, with me starting in. We then split up our group into a further 2 parts, and we utilized the two whiteboards to guide the two groups, by writing the song out on the board and then pointing at the words. Isaac led his group in, and I led my group in at the second line. It was quite a good try, and after a few rounds, we let the groups face each other, with the whiteboard separating them. Then we removed the laptop, and the two parts were singing to each other. And we succeeded. =) The students were all very glad that they could achieve a two-part canon. Even though we lost in the showdown later on with the other group, the students enjoyed themselves greatly. One moment of note was how the students started talking right after their own part, and did not wait for the other part to finish their song. Ms Phoon intervened and told the whole choir about respect for each choir member. We will definitely be repeating this message, and teach the choir to respect each other in future lessons when the need arises.


The students learnt to respect each other as singers, and also learnt how to continue singing during a canon, and not be distracted by each other.

Now moving on to the rest of my post unrelated to the camp, the opening ceremony of Grace Orchard School will be held next Friday, and so, we are going to be decorating the choir notice board and make it very nice. As of now, it will have pictures of the choir inaction, and a list of all the choir members, and maybe with individual Shots too! Of course, it will be very bright and cutesy. But we will see the new noticeboard first this Friday before deciding on what to do. It will have Hobe done by next Thursday, a day before the Opening Ceremony. Talking about Friday, I’ve uploaded the lesson plan. The focus will be on the National Day Songs, and also on developing tone, and leading to pitch the next lesson.

Lesson Plan 020710

Sitting Postition

Warmups Physical

Tone exercises

-Posture (Neck,Cheekbones,Eyebrows,Tongue,Teeth)

-Stomach (Compress air)

-Practice with breathing techniques

-Less reliance on throat, more on chest/stomach

Vocal Warmups

Chew Face, Snake Hissing, Jog Run Jump, Ball Throwing, Underwater bubbles,

Imitation clapping

-This is Home

-We are Singapore

-Grace Orchard

-O Sing we This Day

We will be focusing on Tone exercises to improve their singing posture and overall choral sound, as that will be important during performances, to ensure that their voices blend properly.