“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

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!