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14
School
Days and Preschool Days, Too:
A treasury of anecdotes culled from my work
and play as a preschool worker and an elementary school after- school
activities supervisor
______
DOWN BY THE BAY
I was sometimes
asked, as a preschool substitute-teacher, to lead "Circle"
before lunch. There's usually a guitar handy. Ten minutes of entertainment
or of leading sing-alongs or action songs is not such a tall order.
The Raffi song "Down By The Bay," which
younger parents may remember from their own childhoods, has become one
of my main standbys for such circles. Instead of the traditional verses
like "Did you ever see a moose kissing a goose", I try to encourage
group participation by having everyone sing the chorus. Then I use the
verses to entertain by rhyming the names of the children in the circle.
Preferably the image will make some kind
of sense. "Did you ever see Ryan, riding on a lion?" is one of
my personal favorites. "Taylor, dressed up as a sailor", "Kate, running
when she's late" and "MacKenzie, dancing in a frenzy" are a few more
examples that work. "Bobby, sittin' in the lobby" is a bit of a stretch,
but when going rapidly around a circle of twenty children, any real
rhyme can be a godsend.
The kids will often come up with lines
that include syllable-combinations that aren't actual words—lines
like, "Did you ever see Courtney, riding on her Bortney?" Preschool
children, of course, grasp only some of the elements involved in making
up rhymes.
In the case of aforementioned Courtney,
though, the "nonsense rhyme" has practically created a new kind of animal
or conveyance, at least as far as Courtney and I are concerened. Every
time I see this young lady now, she runs up to me and excitedly says,
"Mr. Max, I rode my Bortney to school today!"
Both of us seem to actually see this
contraption in our minds' eyes, out on the school parking lot. To me,
it looks like some kind of a cross between a horse and a car.
*****
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"What Remains Is
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