My back was killing me yesterday, upper and lower, one of those things that no matter what position I was in, sitting or standing, it hurt.  I was trying to figure out what I had done for it to hurt so much.  Sure, I was actually teaching this week instead of sitting at my desk and watching someone else do it, but I’m not in THAT bad of shape.  I hadn’t needed to move any chairs or risers or large instruments, so that wasn’t it.  Maybe I was just stressed and a bit tense and, well, getting older I suppose.

I woke up this morning, still a bit sore but better.  Same old stuff, meeting, teaching, lunch duty, lunch. Then Kindergarten came in.  After reviewing the school song, we began a poem called “Froggies”, the purpose being that we would recite it while playing a beanbag game on the steady beat.  Sounds like fun, right?

Have you ever played toss with a six year old?  We first worked on just tossing underhanded and I told them I would aim for their hands and they should aim for mine. So far so good.  We did a practice run around the circle just to make sure everyone understood what “underhand” meant.  I was informed by a young lady that indeed, the PE teacher had been working on it with them as well.  Then we began playing the game.

You know, little kids get excited when they play games, especially when there’s the possibility that you’ll get “out”.  The closer we got to “unless, they land, on YOU!”, the more excited they  became, jumping up and down and squealing as little ones tend to do.  My underhand tosses were of course, perfect (ha), however,their excited,slightly out of control tosses were, well – challenging to catch.  I felt much like a batter swinging at balls from a crazed pitching machine, bending down, reaching to the right, reaching to the left, jumping up high as the beanbag flew over my head, getting hit in the chest, face and everywhere else.  This game was supposed to get the kids moving and I was the one doing all the work.  It then dawned on me why I was so sore as one particular stretch pulled all those same muscles that had bothered me yesterday.  When in the world had I gotten so old?

I used to be able to dance and play all day with these kids and now all it takes is a beanbag to bring me down?  A sad state of affairs for sure.  But the kids didn’t seem to notice and they laughed loudly when the beanbag would hit me or I would miss it or drop it because the wind up LOOKED like it was going one way and it was actually went the opposite direction.

Of course, you can’t just stop in the middle of the game, you have to go through the poem/game times the number of children you have in the room.  So, 20 times we said the poem, I tossed the beanbag eight times for every time we said the poem for each phrase, so 160 tosses and 160 near catches during each class.  Well, no wonder I was sore!!

That’s one thing that classroom teachers really don’t understand – the repetition that is teaching in an elementary specialist class.  I have 5 kindergarten classes per week.  That’s 800 tosses and 800 catches this week for one of six or seven activities during the class time and that’s only going through the game with each class once.  Beat that, Mr. PE teacher!  What I have to remember is that for these kids, there is only that one turn, those few tosses during the game that involve them and it’s always fun and exciting.  Much like an actor who does the same show 6 times a week, the elementary general music teacher must treat each class as though it’s their first time and so the energy and focus must remain the same.  It’s not about me, it’s about them.

So tonight, I’ll bring out the Tylenol and maybe the heating pad because I have one more day of wild tosses to catch.  Unless they ask to play it again next week….