“I Sing!”

I have a little boy in my grade 2 class who gave me a major heart-melting-teacher moment last week. He’s the same age as the other grade 2 students, but he functions at about the same age as a 2 year old in some respects, and younger in others. I’m not sure of his diagnosis. He only began walking in the last year, and has slowly increased his vocabulary to approx. 30 words this year.

This particular class had been working on a piece called, “When Santa got Stuck in the Chimney” for the Christmas concert last week. At the end of both verses, there’s “Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!” This little boy couldn’t sing the words to the song, but he COULD do the “Achoo!” – and with gusto! He was so proud of it. Anytime he would see me at school, he would bellow out, “ACHOO!!!” and point to me. It was adorable!

On the day of the concert, his EA’s were wondering if it was really smart to include him in the concert, as he can be quite moody. He was having a good day, and I really wanted him involved. He was SO excited during the dress rehearsal, jumping up and down, smiling, and laughing. As the class was leaving the stage after their dress rehearsal, he started achoo-ing at me, and murmuring and mumbling. His EA and I were standing with him as well as another teacher, and we heard him say as clear as day “I Sing! I Sing!” – Something he’s never done before. I was so excited and happy that my eyes even welled up a little bit.

That night at the concert, he got all of the “achoo’s” exactly in the right spots