I have weekly visits to Marvine School for five weeks. Today was the first Monday of the series. The school liaison Cesar Cordova set me up with the Kindergarten afterschool kids and he wants me to just have fun with the kids – no heavy academics involved. It makes sense for this age, especially when it’s the first taste of school for these children.
It’s a small group of four – Jaden, Jason, Jay are the J-boys and Taniya is the lone girl. I also have a middle school student Anna sitting in to help, but also to, hopefully, learn a thing or two. She’s interested in working with kids so this will be good for us both.
Taniya is a particularly bright girl, and she was totally engaged and even offering ideas as we rolled along. The boys, as expected, are a mixed bag, with Jason being the most “off-the-wall” of the bunch – physically active and somewhat scattered. He’ll be my biggest challenge. The other boys were a delight to work with and a little on the shy side to begin with.
I did a lot of my strong stuff right off the bat in order to gauge where their learning and social skills are. Tutti Tah, Down By the Bay, the Scarves Set with lots of movement. I did Jelly in the Dish with maracas first, tambourines second, etc., trying to keep the focus on similar instruments instead of diving into the bag. There’s time for that later. I included Anna in much of the interplay and she seemed to have a good time, laughing at what we were doing.
These kids are not shy about dancing, part of a new awareness for dance moves recently up in the culture. I was able to spotlight each kid’s favorite move, let them lead and teach the others their move. All in all, there was lots of back and forth, conversations and just plain play.
After an hour plus, they headed out to get picked up by their parents and slipped out the side door, feeling good about a very productive session. Let’s hope the kids come back energized.