I wrapped up my short residency at Lincoln Elementary today, and I got the feeling that we made some friends over the last four days. At the end, one girl said, “I miss you already.”
I brought out The Cat Came Back and I Wanna Be a Dog, a couple of old favorites that I haven’t done in a while, along with Magic Penny at the very end.
I also got three kids to lead the group with The Tutti Tah, and, as I had hoped, the kids had taken ownership of the process and I could become a side member of the group. Ms. Dieter said that it displayed Lincoln Leadership, a great term that the school uses.
I introduced the Rain Stick, as one teacher, Lisa Dieter, googled cactus plants. We had a good session listening to that sound, and, later on, we got to apply it to our rendition of Tropical Vacation as we passed it around and sang the tune. The kids really latched on to this song.
I introduced All Around the Kitchen, taught the kids the chorus, got them up to dance and away we went. The kids came up with The I Don’t Know, The Flamingo and couple of other quirky dances, and, with some prodding, got the kids to sing and dance at the same time, something I’m striving to work on – multiple intelligences stuff. The teachers came up with The Swim and the Knee Switch from the old Charleston days. A lively and engaged session.
At the end, kids came up to give me a hug (they had to ask first) and that was particularly sweet. I mentioned that I felt we were now good friends at this point, and I feel that is quite true. It was nice to do a residency over four consecutive days that made it easier to connect a flow of the material and interpersonal relationships with the kids and teachers.
I’m glad this opportunity popped up in the middle of a fairly slow summer. I learned to access, with the help of the teachers, Google and material on my thumb drive to add visuals. It’s still frustrating about the absence of CD players in the classroom, though.