The problem with children is, they’re never satisfied with the status quo.  An item is never supposed to be used as expected, especially in the eyes of a creative child.  My fear has always been, what if all the structure I’m supposed to provide squashes their creativity?  Well, if today was any indication (and this could be ANY day, by the way), I don’t think I have anything to worry about.  I think I’ve found a happy medium, where I can show my appreciation for the type of creativity I’m seeing and perhaps teach appropriate vs inappropriate times, places, words, etc., in the process.  Multi-tasking!

The morning began with boomwhackers.  The name in itself is unfortunate, and by all appearances they are merely plastic tubes cut to different lengths to play different pitches.  The goal this morning was to create and play chords to go along with “This Land is Your Land”.  It began with the usual, this is how you hold the boomwhacker, please don’t play when it’s not your turn, etc.  And these were fifth graders, so I didn’t give my USUAL speech, and apparently I should have.  Because even at 9:30 in the morning, these kids were thinking creatively.  Why just have just a boomwhacker when you could make it a telescope, or a lightsaber, or a sword or a wind instrument, or a baseball bat?  I love catching them in mid-creation, just as you make eye contact, without words, asking “what do you think you’re doing” and their ever so innocent eyes answering back “I wasn’t doing anything!”.

Creative definitions are also fun.  Teaching the tune to the National Anthem is one thing, but teaching the word meanings so that they understand what they’re singing is another.  Words like “ramparts”, “perilous” and “gallantly”.  They looked at context to try to figure out what the words meant but came up with so many different definitions I can’t remember any specifically.  I mean, who uses these words in everyday conversation other than in the Star Spangled Banner, which is another word you have to define, because the kids call it a “flag”, not a banner.  It make you wonder why it wasn’t called the Star Spangled Flag in the first place, doesn’t it?  And don’t get me started on “Spangled”.

Lunch brings out all kinds of creativity of course.  Like watching a kid eat pizza by picking everything off the top first, licking off any sauce and then digging into what is left of the crust with his thumb.  Pretty labor intensive but it seemed to work for him.  Then there was the girl with the catapult.  She took the handle of her lunch bag which could be detached, twisted it around to make it tight, re-attached it, set an orange peel on top of it and squeezed the latch to let it spring forward.  After I admired the work, I told her that was probably the last time she should do it at lunch, but thanked her for sharing.

Duck, Duck, Goose is a pretty straight ahead kind of game, unless it’s the class clown going around the circle.  In this case, there was a title added to each “duck” as in “Mr. Duck, Mr. Duck, Mrs. Duck, Chicken, GOOSE”!  (Notice he didn’t want any fowl left out of the game). All of the kids were rolling on the floor because this kid was obviously the Jeff Foxworthy of the Kindergarten set.  When I asked him if he was always this funny, he very nonchalantly said, “yeah, I used to be the clown at my other school”, which I assume to be preschool.  Pretty sure this was my husband as a young child.

The day ended with 4th grade singing a round called “I Love the Mountains”.  For those of you older than dirt, like me, you might remember that the last part of the round is Boom-de-ha-da four times.  Again, pretty straight ahead, unless left in the hands of a 10 year old.  How about Booty-ha-da while wiggling your behind?  Or better yet, Poop-de-ah-da, complete with sound effects?  And this musical version where we put a sforzando on the “Boom” while dabbing.  (Can’t wait until that fad disappears!).

So, maybe my fears about creativity disappearing are unfounded.  I find evidence of creativity every day in places that never occurred to me obviously or I would have intercepted it.  And perhaps not the kind that future employers are looking for, but creativity nonetheless.  So, here’s to all the class clowns out there and their teachers.  May we all keep a sense of humor!