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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Music Explorers, vol. IX, the Halloween Edition

Today, I was a stresscase. A combination of feeling unprepared for volunteering (sometimes emails aren't that effective, and that's the only way my co-leader and I plan), having 3 hours of meetings at the end of the day, needing to run errands for the evening beforehand, and anticipating seeing both parents tomorrow, left me anxious for the evening's lesson.

Then, we ended up with 19 kids for 5 volunteers, and those kids love to yammer. Boy, do they ever.

The biggest thing I've learned working on this project is how to stay flexible. My co-leader and I have to always be ready to change our plans because we see different kids every week and also work with different volunteers. We had an initial plan to dress up, make masks, sing and dance this week. We ended up scrapping the arts and crafts part and focused instead on learning the lyrics of and a dance to Michaels Jackson's "Thriller."

But first, we played a rousing game of musical chairs, where the person who misses a chair has to go around and name everyone. If he/she gets them all right, he/she can pick someone else to leave the circle. If he/she gets them wrong, he/she is out. (How PC of me.)

Then, I went over the first 2 verses and chorus of Thriller. We listened first, then read along to a beat, then sang it through a couple times. It was hilarious.

My co-leader masterminded a dance for the chorus, and we threw it all together, complete with an introduction of spooky sounds: witches cackling, doors creaking, zombies groaning, cats meowing, and ghosts booing. They creeped in, making their sounds, then danced the chorus.

It was a spectacle.

Next time, I think we're going to focus on singing--probably Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Is that how that's spelled?

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