Excerpt from a letter I wrote to my university consultant

I just wanted to share a little something interesting about this week. The last two weeks, I had half the class (15 students in grade 4, 13 in grade 5) play xylophones while the other half stayed on the risers and vocalized something related to the playing (FCFCCCFC or 1+2+3+4). It worked alright, but I really had trouble keeping them INTERESTED. It was bugging me. This week, I made a little more room at the xylophones and had everyone come down and sit with a partner. Their job was to help their partner if they needed help. THIS WORKED AMAZINGLY. My grade 5s were almost ALL helping their partners and it made their playing so much better! My grade 4s were a little crazier but it still went well. Then today, I added an embellishment to the song (to be played on high xylophones or glockenspiel but everyone was learning it on any size xylophone). The partner thing again worked great. Also, it was simpler than the ostinato part, so they learned it quickly. My grade 4s had time to play the ostinato, sing and have the embellishment over top, and it sounded great! (Until some of the ostinato players got a little ahead, but that didn't happen right away.) Anyway. It was just hilarious and fun. And the students are so cute with the way they want to help put away instruments after class. I think I will publish this to my blog. (There are probably 2 people who read it.)