The Tykes Put On a Play

Wednesday is my usual teaching day, but today ended up being a full out, full on day anyway. The reception tykes are totally on top of things- they know their songs, they've been practicing their songs, and they are golden. Plus, the teachers are really good about working on it with them.

In nursery I have to keep reminding myself that this is my first time doing a year cycle and thus my first Christmas and hence it is alright that I've been screwing up. The set list keeps changing, the kids don't know the words, the teachers are confused about the tune, and I hadn't yet managed to make a CD of the songs so that they could *practice* Oops.

So this morning I came in early with my audio recorder and Linda and I sat down at the piano and got to work. It was actually totally, totally fun. We went through all of the songs that the nursery years are singing and recorded them with the alternate verses and in some cases slightly-different-than-notated-rhythms that I've already taught to them. Linda and I kept screwing up and then giggling and then getting down to work again.

Sample exchange:
C: lalallaaaa lalal aaa! (singing)
L: plink plonk plink plonk (piano)
C: Oh my gosh, Linda! I just realized! Look at my sweater...it's cabled. And my shirt? Cables. And my socks!! Sheesh, I'm all cabled up.
L: Good thing you don't work for a telegram company then, hmm?
C: ...

So we got that all recorded- which of course took longer than expected because these things just do. Then I went around to all of the nursery classes for a quick run through of the proposed set list, which kept getting tweaked as I went from class to class.

The singing teachers in the nursery division are not evenly distributed- all the teachers and teaching assistants who like singing and are comfortable singing are all in one class, which means that their students are ON it (they've had more practice) and some of the other classes still aren't clear on the lyrics to the two songs we've been doing since half-term. Oops.

BUT! Now everyone has a CD to practice with and we're going to have a quick little jive through the songs tomorrow morning before they go to see the traveling Pantomime that is at school tomorrow.

So that's getting there. And I was a whiz at the CD creation and CD burning, which is good.

We decided that it would be a really good idea to have a run through with the reception kids today as well- not with their lines yet, but just to get them all in one room to sing their songs and to listen to the other class's songs.

They are rock stars.

Seriously, they rocked so hard. They knew the words, they knew the actions, they sang loudly, the hardly hit each other at all (only a little bit of smacking) and then, for the reprise at the end? The teachers weren't sure whether I had taught their students the words yet (I had, but only very briefly) and so the tykes- without waiting for the CD accompaniment immediately started singing the reprise with the correct words in the correct order at *almost* the correct tempo.

I was so proud.

I AM so proud.

Those little tykes. They're good'uns.