better than summer camp

We've started to attend a homeschool group on Mondays.  Many of these same families are in a group that meets on Friday where I teach music/recorder. 

The first Monday and Friday were sort of terrible and lame as I tried to find my feet.  Monday I lead games and there were some new kids in the group that demanded a lot of attention.  They were not interested in the games but rather, in playing games.  Like messing up the games.

This Friday I had the children doing a hop scotch solfege game.  We had learned a simple tune.  We could clap the rhythm.  We could do the solfege.  Now we were really putting it into our bodies.  The kids loved it and we got in crazy amounts of repetition by doing each song through these ways, and oh yeah, on recorder too.  : )

Today for games we did Duck Duck Goose, then Charlie over the Ocean which is like Duck Duck Goose, but with counter motion circles and a call and response song.  : )  We played Old Maid and the kids were really interested in that and it was so cool!  Then we played another Duck Duck Goose game called Drip Drip Flood.  You use a cup of water and go around getting everyone wet.  It was really fun. 

Next week we'll play one last variation where the kids have to list objects in a category ex; mammals... and when they say something out of the category that is the "Goose".

What was so magical about today was the children.  I was just there to play with them.  I introduced the practice of everyone sticking a fist in and doing a "Inka Binka Bottle of Ink" rhyme to choose who was first.  I also told them that everyone could only be it 1 time.  The kids really like that because they knew they would get a turn and it added a level of keeping track of that to the game. 

It's such a pleasure to work with a group of kids having a kind time.