Another session with the preschoolers with a few new songs left in the bag. The kids were ready when I came in so I tried out Sally Go Round the Sun as a simple sing along, especially with the ‘whoop’ at the end. I got them up to get the blood moving. I also do “Ants Go Marching”, worked on more rhyming skills as well as letting them come up with some ideas. I also did Watermelon with the slurp traveling the room, including and concluding with a woman, Lynn, with a note pad in the back. I found out eventually that she was doing an article for the Alliance about my residency in the preschool. She enjoyed the whole session and it was fun to have someone new and adult in the crowd.

We reviewed Peanut Butter and Jelly, just for giggles. I brought along my bag of instruments today and waited for the end of the session to break it out. I was going to do Jelly in the Dish, another new one for these kids and as I opened the bag, I thought that just emptying the stuff out was a little too chaotic, and I hadn’t used the scarves yet, so came up with yet another brilliant idea that I can use further down the line.

I passed out the scarves and the kids immediately started to play with them. I went along with them and we tried over the head, ninja masks and other delights. They led the way. I introduced the first verse and had them hang on to the scarves as we sang, wave them around and at the very end, the last ‘dish…..’ throw them in the air. That way the kids didn’t start tossing them up and around til the end. It worked well. After several verses, the kids were picking up on singing, making the kitchen sounds in the sound and then trading scarves with other kids. It was a rich session, with movement, color, social interaction and it became a performance piece that I can use in some of my gigs this summer.

Sometimes I amaze myself.