Off the Cart, Back in a Classroom

At my second school, we’ve had quite the rollercoaster – while they are renovating our building, we’re housed at a different, smaller school with portables. Long, miserable story, short, the portables had mold, students were moved out of the portables to occupy the music and art rooms, music, art, and library were put on a cart for half a semester, and at the beginning of January the specials team were finally and happily moved to a new portable classrooms of our own. I had quite the adventure working off a cart and trying to prep music programs, all while on a temporary basis with no timeline (we didn’t know if we’d have a classroom back in two days, two weeks, or two months time – it turned out to be closer to three months).

Being on a cart and at the mercy of outside, completely-uncontrollable circumstances reminded me to be grateful for what I do have – unbelievably supportive colleagues, students who love me and love my lessons, a flexible curriculum, and so much more. Being back in a room, however small, makes us all very grateful for the space to spread out and grow together. I have to share two pictures from this week to celebrate the new space and all we should be thankful for:

(student faces are blurred for their privacy and protection)

1st graders with our parachute – we’re practicing sol-mi and preparing la with “Snail, Snail”, and we took turns sitting in the middle of the ‘snail shell’ while the parachute went ’round and ’round!

We finally have room for our xylophones again – so we used the Mallet Madness lesson on “Pease Porridge Hot” to practice ta rest, even adding finger cymbals to the rests in our song!

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