Tykes To Catch Up On! (Again)

The tykes are still tyking along. But this time it isn't just random tyking around, this time we have direction. Namely towards our Christmas show on Thursday!

Here, let me tell you about it:
1. The Nursery Tykes are singing songs about Stars.

For some reason this year for both halves of the show (Nursery and Reception) I managed to decide that there should be PROPS. A LOT OF PROPS. Not really sure why it turned out that way. (No, I know why. It was because between props and actions or learning lines, I decided props and actions would be easier. Not sure if that is accurate or not yet.) Right. STARS. Prop-wise for Nursery we've got four fishing poles (bamboo garden stakes) with stars hanging off the end for Fishing For Stars, and five giant stars (think 2.5' wide) for Five Little Stars. Oh, and every class is making festive hats and wands with stars and practically silent jingle bells.

All of these props have been decorated by the tykes, so what that means is that they are all covered in not particularly well glued on glitter. Which means that now the entire school is also covered in glitter. Anywhere I walk while carrying the props is now covered in glitter. All of my work clothes are covered in glitter. My hair is covered in glitter. My trousers are covered in glitter. The glitter is covered in glitter.

Glitter, glitter, glitter.

And that's not even taking into account Reception's props. (Really only the Silver fish which are, of course, decorated with glitter...)

2. Last Thursday we had our first full rehearsal with the Nursery and the Reception tykes all together in one place. It turned out that due to some miscommunication between me, the head of Early Years, and the kitchen staff that instead of an hour in the hall, we had 20 minutes. But that's okay! We'd make it work! Because the tables were also already set up for lunch, we also had a lot less space than I was expecting which meant that when we actually got around to starting I was completely encircled by roughly 100 tykes.

On Thursdays I work as a nursery assistant, which is nice because I get to spend more time with that class of tykes, but is also kind of frustrating because I don't always know what is going on and because it is not *my* class, if things are dragging I don't feel like I can say "Right, we're doing this now" because that would be stepping on the head teacher's toes. Basically I am still adjusting to working for someone else, so it was with great relief and joy that I was able to be in charge of that rehearsal.

Everyone rocked their songs. We ploughed through them and they kept quiet when it wasn't their turn to sing and they sang loudly when it was their turn to sing and they all followed me when I got their attention by patting my knees and I had all of them doing the vocal warm up together and applauding and oh! I felt like I was being lifted up on a cloud made of endorphins and awesome.

3. I feel a bit bad about how many props and bits and bobs I've been handing off to the teachers to figure out how to make, but may I just say that they have come through with flying colours?! The nursery tykes all have different seasonally related hats- one class has gold reindeer antlers made from cut out hand prints, one class has felt Santa and elf hats, and the last class has 3D Christmas trees held together with sparkly pipe cleaners. The whole effect is adorable and awesome. The reception tykes all have their animal hats, and while people have been thinking that the polar bears are mice (I would object by asking what on *Earth* mice have to do with Christmas and winter except that the other two classes are fish and ducklings respectively so I suspect that I wouldn't have a leg to stand on with that argument) they all look fantastic.

Tuesday Tykes

I was thinking Tuesday morning as I was coming in to work that I just really didn't want to be there. You know, waking up early in the morning when I'd prefer to be sleeping, not *entirely* sure what the state of the songs are this week and sort of dreading needing to figure out how to put this Christmas show on. (I made a mistake with the nursery tykes in that I am not excited about the songs that they are singing, but it's too late to change them now and it's important to make sure that they're still having fun and learning the songs. It's a bit of a slog like that.) So...feeling a bit down and cranky.

But then?

Then I got to work and had my performance review meeting where we made a list of things I'm going to be working on this year, all three of which I'm excited about because they're things I actually want to do and that will actually be helpful. (Learning to use solfege through Kodaly training and working with the reception classes on it, making a resource bank of rhythm and instrumental games or exercises for teachers to do when it isn't music specialist time, and creating a progress grid based on national guidelines for tracking how well individual children are doing with music.) I was given a drawing made by one of my nursery tykes for me yesterday (tyke love! Yay!), and spent half an hour making up prototype hats/costumes for the Christmas play. The duck hat is covered in feathers and googly eyes and everyone that I've asked (including some of the most literal people around: nursery tykes) have correctly identified it as a duck! I spent the afternoon working with one of the nursery teachers to organize the stage set up for the show, the running order of the songs, and and figuring out what props we need.

So we're set, and I got to spend my morning doing arts and crafts and singing. So clearly, I'm back to feeling like the luckiest person ever that I get to do what I do.

(Yeah, that's bragging again...sorry)

The Tykes are BACK!

Or rather, I am back with the tykes. In any case half term is over and we're together again at school. Christmas preparations are in full swing! The tiniest of the tykes are doing a medley of songs focusing on the theme of Stars! Because...that's Christmassy. Right?

Did you guys all know that in the UK jumping jacks are called star jumps? I totally called on that knowledge to create an impromptu bit of choreography for the tiniest tykes when they were getting super restless during my class. We had two other songs to learn, but they clearly needed to move, so I ended up standing them all up and then doing star jumps through the first two lines of Twinkle Twinkle. Then, emboldened by that, made the little hand actions into full body actions and called it a dance. Which we're now totally going to do during the show. (I love being in charge!)

On Tuesday I woke up at 5, decided I had another hour to sleep before my alarm went off, and then woke up again at 8. Since I'm meant to be *at* work by a quarter after 8, that was kind of a problem. After scurrying through some of the fastest day preparations I've ever done I managed to make it to school only an hour late. At which point I used 5 minutes to craft the wonkiest star puppets ever. (I love that I have to get to work on time in order to cut paper and stick things on to Popsicle sticks.) We used the puppets in "Five Little Stars," another one of our star themed songs for the show.

Today there was a tube strike (again) so I was late (again). It took over two hours to get from my house to school. Not to worry, I hit the ground running and started the bigger tykes off on their Christmas show tunes! All was going well through the first class- the songs have a super peppy backing track that meant that the tykes were like "Again! Again! Miss Casey, we want to sing it again!!!" Which, really, is all you could ever dare to dream of for a tyke's music class. So I was feeling nicely set up for the other two classes. However, when I sat down to start the second class I found that somewhere between the bottom of the stairs and the top of the stairs- the CD had broken in half.

Er...

I have no clue how that possibly could have happened given the fact that it was in. a. case. But oh well. I winged it. (To less acclaim than I was hoping for, but you do what you can.) So we're puttering along. The show is the first week of December (or maybe it works out to the second week of December...single digits anyway.) So we have our work cut out for us.

Tykes Odds and Ends

Last week during a lesson in one of the nursery rooms I managed to use a hula hoop to knock over a bunch of test tubes containing coloured water. (Isn't that a wonderful set up for something? It seems like all of those things together would be the beginning of a fabulous surreal story, but really it was just a watery mess.) I felt bad that I had just spilled water everywhere including all over the Montessori materials on the shelves- but all of the tykes kept saying "It's okay, Miss Casey!" in that particular voice that you use to console a three year old when they've made a mess in a clearly accidental way. Like wetting themselves or something like that.

Good to know they've been listening and taking it in.

I know it's only October, but we're already moving in to working on the Christmas show. This year we're getting ambitious and having the show on a proper stage at an away venue instead of just in the hall/cafeteria at school. Also, (because I think they can do it) both the Reception Tykes AND the Nursery Tykes will be doing their own Nativity plays. I use the term "nativity" very loosely: one is about a kind scarecrow and his animal friends and involves Mr and Mrs. Claus; while the other does mention baby Jesus but is mostly about a bunch of stars.

I know I'm talking about religion a bunch on this blog- but it comes up fairly often at school. It's a religiously diverse school and I'm still not used to the fact that there isn't a separation of church and state in this country. Fine lines to tread and all that.

I wanted to make sure that all of the classroom teachers were on board with the Christmas show plans and I wanted to make sure that if there were any concerns that I heard them now, in October, rather than learning about them in December or, even worse, not hearing about them at all and just frustrating/angering some of them. So I've been running the scripts and songs by the teachers and getting feedback. Most of the teachers are keen to try something a bit more challenging, but it is interesting what sort of traditions people hold on to in a school where the longest serving teacher amongst the Early Years staff has only been here for 5 years. (I guess that is plenty long to make a tradition.) Fortunately at this point we've still got enough time to change the plans pretty drastically if we need to.

Halloween? Pssht. Thanksgiving? Whatever. It's jingle bells on rotate here! (Side note: I have, legitimately, had Good King Wenceslas stuck in my head for the better part of this past month. I have no idea why.)

Nativity Play Update

The tykes are coming along. I have been in nearly every day for the past two weeks doing run throughs and extra rehearsals and sorting out CD's to practice with and all the nitty gritty of putting on a show that is easy to forget about.

Today was our dress rehearsal! My gosh the costumes are cute. I hadn't realized that the nursery kids were going to have costumes as well (the Receptions tykes obviously do since they are putting on a proper play with characters and everything!) The nursery tykes made star wands to wave around during the French song "Etoile de Noel" (Star of Christmas?) and have made reindeer headbands! So cute! The antlers are bronze hand prints cut out and stuck onto a brown circle of construction paper on their heads.

The reception tykes rocked their dress rehearsal! Well, sort of. The costumes are great, they know all the words, and for the most part they do the hand actions (though there are a couple of tykes who will do the actions for all the songs that they are *not* singing in as well. I think that's hilarious). What we're currently having trouble with is a case of too many cooks spoiling the soup. Any and all adults who have been involved with this show are sitting in front doing the actions along with the kids and so they have *no* idea where to look.

We did not do a good job of sorting out the choreography of their attention.

As much as I would like to be at the head of the show boosting them along and leading it- I think I need to back off (along with B.,, the head of Early years, who doesn't even *know* the actions! Stop! You're confusing them! Look at their faces! Con-fused!) and just let the classroom teachers lead the show. It's going to be great though- they are adorable in their costumes and it will be fascinating to see how the excitement of having their *parents!* in the room will affect them.

Nursery tykes. Oh, nursery tykes. You are so very cute in your reindeer hats. But nursery tykes? If you sit there moping and not making a sound then this isn't going to work. Mope-y tyke-y reindeer are cute and amusing- but they're not really the vibe we're going for. You know, nursery tykes? So what do we need to do? How can I help tomorrow so that on Wednesday we are the *excited* and *awesome* baby reindeer that I KNOW we can be? Hmmm? Let me know nursery tykes. We can do this together.

In other news I woke up with "Xanadu" stuck in my head and it hasn't left yet. Olivia Newton John- I'm a fan and all, but that song is terrible!

TYKES!

I've missed them. I know I was getting all frustrated with them just before mid-term break, but we're back now and it's all good. We're gearing up for Winter festivities (yes, I know Halloween was just a few days ago- but in my mind it is Christmas all the time.) The nursery tykes have some winter themed songs to sing and the Reception tykes are putting on a whole nativity play!



Apparently that is a done thing in this country- schools do Nativity plays. The one that we're doing is called "Whoops-A-Daisy Angel" and is by Nikki Davies. It's got cute songs that don't seem like they'll get *too* annoying by mid-December and it has a cute little plot:



Whoops-a-Daisy Angel is always rushing around and making mistakes- so she never gets any of the good jobs- like dusting moonbeams. Instead she has to count snowflakes...Then one day she gets an exciting job! She gets to tell the shepherds on a hill that Jesus is born. So finally she gets something right.



Aww.



I cut both the songs that mention "Jesus" or "Christ the Lord" and now the only time he is referred to as anything other than a baby is in French. It still weirds me out that we're doing a nativity play but this is just about as secular as I can make it. So that feels more comfortable to me. For next year I kind of want to write my own...we'll see how that goes.



I'm excited about how I've decided to hand out parts and do the staging and whatnot. There are three reception classes so each of them get to be a part as a unit. That means one class is the Perfect Angels, one class is the Snowflakes, and one class is the Whoops-a-Daisy AngelS. (I've pluralized everything.) That way each class can make their own costumes as a group and they all sing together.

There are two songs that the whole year group sings and then each class gets their character's song as well. For the set we'll have three benches- one for each class- so they'll all be sat as a group and when it is their turn to sing or speak they just stand up where they are. None of this funny business with walking across the stage or anything like that.

The costumes will be white clothes (they've all got white turtlenecks for their school uniforms anyway) and then various headdresses: perfect halos, crooked halos, and some sort of snow flake headdress. Not entirely sure what to do about wings for the angels, but some of the reception teachers are trying to figure out what to do with that. The reason we're trying to keep away from having the parents really getting involved with the costumes is the concern that they will get overly competitive and each try to outdo the others. Not so good for uniformity in costumes...

In any case we are all kinds of on top of this project and I'm getting pretty excited about it. I also have the songs running through my head constantly. So the reception years are totally sorted.

Nursery years are a bit harder to sort out for this winter extravaganza. I should probably just go with a bunch of traditional Christmas songs since they are three years old and have never sung them before- but I have to sing them over and over again as well so I want to make sure that they are still fun for me as well. There is one about snowflakes that I found that I'm excited about. And one that we learned this week about the cold wind whistling around various body parts --but that one only changes one word per verse which is more repetitive than I am really willing to deal with.

It is a fine line to balance with kids songs- being repetitive enough that they can learn it and understand the pattern and being different enough so that it is not obnoxious. For the wind whistling song I am thinking of writing a short B section so that it changes just a little at some point.

Enough with the Christmas show- we also started using instruments! And oh. It went so very well. We have a rhyme this year "if you play before I say, then I will take it away" and I was ruthless-- which worked WONDERS. They treated it as a game and sat quietly and payed attention and it was awesome. We even had a little "explore your instruments" time where I told them to figure out other ways of playing and then looked around the circle and did my best to congratulate each child on something creative they were doing. My favorite was from one of the nursery classes where a little girl was putting her egg shaker on top of her bent knees and then pulling them apart so that the egg shaker fell on to the carpet. It was really fun to do and not something I ever would have thought of. The kid who kept hitting his head with the claves though? I said "what a great idea, doesn't it hurt though?"