Music Explorers, vol. X

I keep starting these posts with sentences like..."Today I was a stresscase" and "tonight was hard," but...Tonight was tough. We keep getting large, antsy groups of kids and hoping against all hope that they'll get something from our frenzied lessons. The fact is, we're really good at being flexible, and tonight we basically threw our plan out the window.

We started with a craft--making headbands with 3 feathers, on which they had to write 3 things they were thankful for. This was pretty much the only part of the night that went swimmingly. The kids were eager and creative and were thankful for a varied range of things: from Mom and Auntie to baseball and chicken nuggets.

I was hoping to have them master my notorious Cup Game. (Many of you have played it with me.) I think with a small group, we would have been able to conquer it, but they couldn't get the rhythm down, even though they all REALLY loved making noise together.

Then, we attempted to introduce them to Rounds and all sang Row, Row, Row Your Boat...with the intention of also teaching them Frere Jacques (in French and English) and then breaking them into groups to perform their own versions of the rounds as a final project. Of course, somehow that turned into WHO CAN SCREAM THIS SONG THE LOUDEST?! We got them to do a round as a group at least.

Then we got up and let them dance. I think they just needed to not be sitting for so long.

Lessons learned.

At the end of the evening, we always provide the kids with a snack. I bought them cider, in honor of the season and because it had been a hit one time before. One boy took a sip, then went "Blehhhhh. It tastes like mop!"

I was, at once, irritated by his rudeness and impressed with his creativity.