Twas the Week Before Christmas And....

...We were still in school.  In all of my teaching career, I have never tried to teach school right up through December 23rd!  I decided to try to consider it a personal challenge to see how much I could actually get done, despite the fact that all anyone seemed to be able to think about was the impending holidays and celebrations.  Each day, we updated our calendar and counted the remaining days.  I was ever more astounded as we got closer and closer to the Big Day, and found myself and the children STILL there, staring each other in the eyes.  (I don’t know why, I just was!)  I really expected attendance to be quite poor as the holiday approached, but in fact it was not!  I am inclined to think that parents were probably grateful to have their children taken care of while they did all of their holiday preparations, LOL!  Not one child was taken away for an extended trip out of the country or for any type of vacation.  Amazing!  Kudos to my class and their amazing parents! 

Decorations for the Gingerbread Man Play

My class performed my Gingerbread Man play on Wednesday last week, and they were absolutely AWESOME!!!!  They were so cute that I have no words to describe it!  And I was SO looking forward to sharing some photos of my beautiful children with you here today, but alas, I have been informed by my district office that I can no longer do this here nor on my HeidiSongs Facebook page. Despite the fact that the parents have all given permission, it violates a district rule that I was unaware of.  So instead, I will make the best of it and share with you some of the wonderful and sometimes funny things that happened this week!  Also, I would like to show you what a beautiful job our parent volunteers did decorating our stage for the play, as you can see in the photo above!  Our FIVE kindergarten classes all performed the play, and most of these decorations were made by some wonderfully creative parents from another Kindergarten class!  I understand that they spent about twelve hours painting them and putting them together.  Wow!  This is just one small example of the amazing culture of volunteerism that exists at my school.  Also, since I can no longer show you video clips from my own class, we have inserted clips from other schools that have uploaded their productions to youtube from all over the nation.  We found many!  If you would like to send us pictures or video clips of your class using HeidiSongs products, we would love to feature them in our blog sometime!  So send them on over!



Our Gingerbread Man Play
*  I was having trouble getting my students to face the audience while they were sitting on the steps of the stage, waiting for their turn to go up on the stage, sing, and chase the Gingerbread Man.  They always want to turn around and watch their friends sing and chase, etc.  Some of them even literally stand up on the steps and climb up to stand on the stage to watch!  So I finally told them, “Your parents came to see the CUTE side of you, not the NOT CUTE side of you!  This is the cute side of you:  (I pointed to my smile.)  This is the NOT CUTE side of you.  (I turned around and showed them my back side, and the class roared with laughter.)  Then I said, “Okay, show me your cute side.  (They pointed to their smiles.)  Show me your not cute side.”  (They all turned around on their knees and showed me their tushies, of course!)


 Guess what?  It worked!  In all of the years I have been doing this play and the others, such as the Mitten, the Wide Mouthed Frog, I have had this problem and not been able to solve it very well.  And this one finally worked!  Hooray!



*  My little guy that played the Gingerbread Man this year had a little sister that just turned three who somehow managed to learn all of the motions and words to the play.  (I think that they may have a DVD of the play at home, since his older brothers and sisters were all in my class as well!)  Anyway, on the day of our play, his mother brought her along, and I suggested that she dress his little sister up in an extra elf costume that I had, just for fun.

Our Itty Bitty Preschool Elf

I hadn’t thought about her getting up on the stage and actually DOING the play with us; I just thought that we could take some pictures!  But in any case, she sat herself down on the steps with the rest of the class and proceeded to be in the play!  She is very well behaved and I already knew that she knew all of the words and motions, because she follows the family tradition of “super smart kids!”  Amazingly, this little three year old did the entire play!  She sang all of the songs on the steps of the stage.  She went up on the stage with the other elves, Santa, and Mrs. Claus.  And when her brother, the Gingerbread Man ran by for the last time, he tapped her on the shoulder to tell her it was time to chase him!  (You know, he had to take care of his little sister!)  She chased him around with the others.  She stopped exactly when and where she should have stopped, even though she only SAW one rehearsal when her mother came by once to watch.  She sat back down when she was supposed to.  She stood up at the end and sang the Finale when she was supposed to.  She was quiet when she was supposed to.  She took a bow when I asked the children to.  AMAZING!  Did I hear anyone say that this play is preschool appropriate????  Anyone???? Anyone????  :)



*  On the morning of our play, we counted the days left until Christmas.  (Luckily, all of the families in my class celebrate Christmas this year, so counting the days is not a problem.)  Anyway, we decided that there were only four days until Christmas.  I was feeling a little exasperated that we were still in school with only four days to go until the holiday, and I said, “FOUR days until Christmas.  And WHAT are we doing here?????”  My sentiments, of course, were completely lost on the kids.  They all shouted, “THE GINGERBREAD MAN!!!!!”    LOL LOL LOL LOL!

*  When the play was over, my students were changing out of their costumes.  One of the parents from the class next door informed me that a boy in the bathroom was running around stark naked!  So I walked over to the boys’ bathroom and heard quite a commotion going on inside.  I reluctantly peeked in to check it out and found quite a sight!  She was right, of course!  And the little one in question ran right up to the door in his birthday suit to find out what I wanted, without a thought to cover up what God gave him, unfortunately.  I put a stop to this behavior as quickly as I possibly could, of course!
Oh, the antics of five year old boys!  You could really fill an entire book with incidents like these!  I once was called to the bathroom to check out some similar behavior.  In this case, a little boy was “taking a bath” in the sink.  He was also buck naked, and washing himself!  For the record, I NEVER go inside that bathroom- EVER!  I just demand that they dress themselves and come out.  THEN I deal with it.  Ugh!

*  On Friday morning, one of my students raised his hand and said, “I don’t think Santa is going to bring me anything tomorrow.”  I said, “Why not?”  He answered, “Because I’m on his naughty list.”  (Unfortunately, I could see why his mom might have told him that!)  I tried to suppress a giggle, and also heard my many wonderful volunteers that came on Friday doing the same thing.  I suggested that perhaps if he were really, really good for the rest of the day, he might wind up on Santa’s nice list instead!

*  Another time during the week, one little boy noticed that some of the children were starting to bring me presents.  He asked, "Why are people bringing you presents?"  I replied, "Well, it's Christmas."  Then he said, "How come nobody is bringing ME presents????"  I really had no idea what to say to that, so I just mumbled that I really didn't know and let it go at that.  :)

*  Friday was a Minimum Day, so dismissal was earlier than usual (thank goodness!)  This always makes it hard on parents because the routine is disrupted, and a unfortunately, few may forget to come pick up their children, despite the reminders that go home.  It seems to happen to everyone now and then.  But in any case, one of my students did not get picked up, so I walked him over to the office to wait for his mother.  I explained to him that his mother would be coming, and the nice lady in the office would take call his mother and take care of him until then.  So I dropped him off and heaved a sigh of relief as I walked back to my room, happy that I was done for two weeks- hooray!  I was nearly back to my classroom when I realized that I was being followed:  the little guy just left the office and followed me like a baby duckling following his mother back to the nest!  So I turned around and brought him back to the office and again explained that he had to STAY there and wait for his mother in the office, not in the classroom.

I hope that you had a wonderful holiday, and are enjoying a restful vacation!