Then There's This

I finally jumped into Jared Flood's Rock Island shawl.  I thought it would be hard what with increasing and decreasing stitches on both RS and WS but with proper color coding, it's been completely manageable and definitely a lesson in blocking.

I bought this necklace at the Arts festival this summer.  I wore it today to keep me laughing as  I slither along into music teacher program mania.  If anyone asked, I said it was my sister and I in childhood.  She's the one sticking her tongue out.

And finally, I can't believe I've never written about this before.  It's really the absolute best part of my job whenever it happens.

I'm going to assume that most of you know the song Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.  I'm also going to assume that, unlike my aunt or my husband, you also know the little echo parts.

Used to laugh and call him names... like Pinnochio

Join in any Reindeer games.... like Monopoly.

Santa came to say... ho ho ho

You'll go down in history... like George Washington.

Very often, kindergarten students do not know the little echoing part.  It's a first grade/second grade thing.  If by chance (as is often the case ) kindergarten students haven't heard the additions and I get to be the one to sing them to them, it is the best thing in the entire universe.  They giggle and laugh and seriously crack up at what I'm doing to their song.  I think it must be the innocence in the room as they react.  It seems very real and very pure.  

When they get to second and third grade, inevitably I hear the one change that only older kids can  make with this line:

Santa came to say... in his underwear!  

I never heard that one as a child but when second and third graders sing it with a sparkle in their eyes, it cracks me up.   And I have to act all "this is inappropriate" like and they have to act all "look at what we got away with" like.  It's a laugh riot.

Finally, when you sing Jingle Bells with any grade, there is always always always a young man (or sometimes a girl with older siblings) seated on the side who is mouthing the words:

Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg.  The batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker got away! 

What this kid in the back is not expecting the second time through is that I start singing that version and they all join in.  It's no longer the skeleton in the closet.  It's out in the open.

I did, however have one adorable first grade girl change the second half of that song to:

He blew his nose in cheerios and ate them anyway, hey!

We did not sing that version.  I had to draw the line somewhere.