I should know better.  I’ve been doing this for years.  The problem is that I need to go over expectations and procedures with kids at the beginning of school, especially with the kindergarten.  Unfortunately, they tend to succumb to the power of suggestion very easily.  But we’ll get to that in a minute.

Let’s go through my routine this week for Kindergarten.  They come into my room and I ask them to sit on a dot in the circle.  This year I’ve added an additional direction in that, once they choose a dot, they have to stay there.  Why?  Because they’ll find a dot, and then find a BETTER dot on the other side of the circle.  Which opens up a dot where they were for someone else to move to.  You get the idea.  And of course, you always have the kid that MUST sit on a red dot and there are no more red dots open.  This can open a serious can of worms as you try to convince them that another color is just as good as red OR “it’s just a dot”.  Never works.  Today I had those kids who were trying to pull up the dots or the velcro from their shoes was getting caught on the carpet next to the dots.  You don’t realize just how annoying the sound of velcro being pulled on and off can be.

Then I proceeded to explain the risers to them and what they were for and that they would have a seat on it that was all theirs.  I sit them on the top and then the bottom, but what happens is that I have some kid that says, “but I want to sit on the top!”.  And another that’s sitting on the top who has almost instantaneously figured out how to kick the risers AND play with the wheels on the back of the risers at the same time, creating the most irritating noise.  Almost as bad as the velcro.  We practice going back and forth from the dots to the risers, making it a game until the giggles start.  Then I know they’ve got it.

We take a tour of the room, showing them where the instruments are, where you invariably have some kids shout out “I know how to play ALL of those!”.  Then there is the kid that starts off with “do you have one of those, those, those – you know, you do this (making a motion with his hands), and it sounds like this (makes a sound) and it kind of looks like a frog…. ”  Yes, I have one of those.  “What is it called?”  A frog.  Phew – bit the bullet on that one!

Then we walked over to where the Kleenex, sanitizer, water fountain and bathroom passes are.  Here’s where we get into trouble.  Immediately I have hands raised; can I go to the bathroom?  I really have to go!!  I need a drink (fake cough or hiccup).  I need to blow my nose! (followed by a loud sniff with no substance).  So then comes the guessing game for me.  I’m pretty sure about the nose and the fake cough, but it’s the bathroom thing that gets me.  Do they really need to or was it the power of suggestion?  We have to be careful here because once I say yes to the first one, the rest of the class will need to go too, one at a time interrupting the rest of the class.  So, using my best teacher intuition, I check to see if they’re wiggling, holding themselves or if their eyeballs are turning yellow.  Shoot, if I can wait all afternoon to go, they can too.  Ok, maybe not.

Then I sit them back down at the front to read them a book “The Music Teacher from the Black Lagoon”, a favorite of mine from way back.  As I begin, a little voice, not preceded by a hand being raised asks “when are we going to sing?”.  After the book.  A few minutes into the book, “when are we going to do music?”.  After the book.  “Are we going to sing now?”  Yes, in a minute.  At least today it was only one child and not several.

Then we finally get to the song at the end.  I play the little tune on the piano and sing to them.  “Wow!” one of the boys exclaims”. How did you do that?”  And I’m reminded that it doesn’t take much to impress a five year old.  Then I introduce my duck puppet to sing the next song where they need to clap.  “Listen to the duck go quack, quack, quack…, clapping on the three quacks.  After a few times, the kids are ready to take it on themselves so I let them go.  The big teddy bear of a kid in the back row sits up straight, smiles and sings “Listen to the duck go kwap, kwap, kwap!”  Well, at least he was clapping at the right time.