almost there

I know I’ve been ignoring my blog lately. As a musician, Christmas is probably the busiest time of year for performances. I’ve already played in 5 different concerts in the last 8 days, and I still have 4 more this week, and 3 more the week after that. Yikes!

The only one I’m truly anxious about is my first school Christmas concert which is happening the day after tomorrow. I think the kids are almost ready, and I have an amazing committee of teachers and administration at school who are going above and beyond to help decorate and get all of the logistics worked out. I’m still nervous, though. It’s a big deal! And to top things off, we had a storm day today so I’ve lost a valuable rehearsal day. I’m trying not to panic.

Collaboration Christmas!

For most of the month of December, the phys. ed teacher and I will be collaborating on a dance/movement unit with our students. Our schedules work out so that one of us has an older grade when the other has a younger grade. I’ll be bringing my classes to the gym to work with her classes on dance and movement projects set to Christmas music. Two of the classes will be working on line dances, and the other two will be working on black light movement pieces. We’ll have black lights set up, the windows to the gym will be completely blacked out, and the lights will be turned off. The students will dress all in black, they will wear white gloves or hold white ribbon. The white will be the only thing you see.

Because my Christmas concert is already chock full of pieces from all of the different music classes, there (unfortunately!!!) is no time for us to allow the students to perform all of their dance/movement numbers in the concert. We decided that one group – the most outstanding group -  will have the chance to perform at the concert, and all of them will have the chance to perform at the traditional Christmas sing-a-long assembly on the last day of school before Christmas. This way, everyone will be (hopefully) committed to doing the best job they can, and everyone will have a chance to perform at least once.

This is not only a wonderful chance for the students to work with a group that they are not used to working with, but it encourages participation, team building, and leadership for the older students. Teaching is such a lonely profession – it will also give myself and the phys. ed teacher a chance to be around another adult during the day. We’re so excited to work together on this!