Raffi and Other New Quests

These past 2 weeks in school have been interesting, to say the least. This position has proven to be one of the most overwhelming, rewarding, and multi-task-intense jobs I've had. The variety of grades, learning levels, and needs has been a huge juggling act. I have been doing it somewhat on the fly, thanks to the incompetence of the co-teacher that I worked with the last 2 weeks.

I will be flying solo starting tomorrow. I have no doubt that I can handle this, but it's going to take a lot of planning. I can be kind of (ahem) anal when it comes to planning and organizing. It just makes me feel better when I have a plan in place. I tend to over plan, in fact. I know, hard to believe. But the worst thing is the feeling of panic that you get when you look at the clock and see that you have 20 more minutes left with a room full of kindergartners and nothing to do with them. Talk about the recipe for chaos. Do you know what 15 kindergartners can do with 20 minutes and a room full of books? Ike, you got nothing.

So where did I find myself this morning? On iTunes. No, I wasn't downloading stuff I normally listen to. I was downloading Raffi. Shake, Shake, Shake Your Sillies Out, and Bananaphone. I found myself remembering a family that Rick and I used to babysit. They listened to Raffi incessantly and Rick and I found ourselves at home singing, "Here come the horses clipping clopping," or "Who built the ark? Noah! Noah" on several occasions. Raffi's music has the tendency to stick in your head and not go away. By the way, for those parents out there, there is a cool CD by the Barenaked Ladies that is all kid's songs.

So now my quests when I'm out in stores will be books (as usual) and now kid's music. If you have any suggestions, send them my way. It's not the fifth graders who are intimidating me this year. It's the 5 year-olds in kindergarten. I'm going to need all the suggestions I can get.