This fall, SD and I are starting an intergenerational (youth and adult) choir at our church. The church has a strong children's choir program (through 6th grade) and a good size adult choir (30-40). Our program is a short, 8-week session designed for people who love to sing - no prior experience necessary. We meet once a week for an hour and at the end of the session, we'll combine with the adult and children's choirs to sing an anthem in worship.

We created this group for people that like to sing but feel uncomfortable jumping right into the adult choir, those who can't make Wednesday night rehearsals or don't feel they can make the year-long commitment, and those who've never formally sung in a choir but want the experience.

It sounded good on paper.

We gave the invitation by email, print mailings, and the weekly bulletin. We made an announcement in church one Sunday. We shook hands with people we didn't know at Coffee Hour.

One week before our first rehearsal, we had four people signed up.

How do you write a lesson plan?  How do you know how long things will take in rehearsal?  Is it best to start with something new or something familiar?  What do you do when they stop paying attention? These are some of the questions I had in my first years of teaching and I'm sure they resonate with many of you, as well.

The answers to these questions really depend on what kind of teacher or director you are or want to be and what kind of group you're working with.  After a few years of working with children's choirs, I found a quick pace with lots of music and related activities seems to keep everyone's attention while still working toward my learning goals for the ensemble.