(I feel half of a need to apologize for yet another post about my youngest music students, but this one is just too good to keep to myself.)
One great upside of working in an elementary school is that they love to pay compliments. They love to receive them, and they love to find ways to reflect that back to their teachers. Usually, it’s a comment that they like my shoes, hair, shirt, or singing. Occasionally, it’s a comment like, “You’re so nice.”
This morning, I had the 4-year-old preschool class. They only meet on Wed. through Fri., so they were having their Valentine’s Day party today. They were WOUND. UP! One of the activities we do with this group is tossing a beanbag up and across a circle while the students follow the shape of the beanbag with their voices. We like to give every student a turn. Normally, everybody stands until everyone has had a turn, but I often have trouble keeping track of which students in this group have had turns. So, this week (I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this sooner) I told the students that we were going to do things a little differently. I said, “As soon as you have caught and tossed the beanbag, I want you to sit down.” This is when I heard the compliment that made my day. One little boy said, “Oooo, so creative!”
Yes, apparently this move ranked me as a creative genius.
