Notes From the Music Room

I'm back! More funny school stuff coming your way! You may think the title of this blog post alludes to the existentialist novel by Dostoevsky. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. You decide!

Milk and Cookies
The other day, a second grader tried to smuggle milk into the music room via his front sweatshirt pocket today. It wasn't very subtle. He looked like he had a carton-shaped food baby. The teacher made him take it back to the classroom.

A little later, we were making "ta's" and "ti-ti's" with sticks.

"These remind me of cookies and chocolate chips," he announced.

The sticks we use are yellow and skinny. We call them "chopsticks" even though you would never want to eat with them. They don't look anything like cookies or chocolate chips.

"You’re hungry today, aren’t you?" I said.

Meme Master
One of my choir students walked through the door and told me he was a Meme Master.

"Is that a thing?" I asked. "Or are you just saying you make a lot of memes?"

"Yeah, Meme Masters are real!" a couple of other kids chimed.

"But what does it mean? That you just make a lot of memes?"

I couldn't get a straight answer from them, so I did some research.

Also known as a Meme Lord, a Meme Master is a person known for creating or distributing memes (usually humorous material copied and circulated online).

In other words, someone who makes a lot of memes.

Musical Rehearsals: Being a Plant and Traumatizing Kindergartners
My 5th and 6th graders are currently rehearsing for our spring musical, The Little Mermaid.

At the end of "Under the Sea," I asked my 5th graders raise their arms in a V with "blade fingers."

One of the boys said, "Stand like a cactus!"

A couple of minutes later we were practicing the ending again, and I reminded them to make a V with their arms.

"Or . . . stand like a cactus!" he added.

One of my lunchtime practices was running behind, and I asked the kindergarten teacher to seat her kids in the back of my room to watch the end of rehearsal.

We finished up by chopping off the "Les Poissons" fish head.

After the 6th graders left, the kindergartners were in a tizzy.

"Why did you chop that fish head off? That was terrifying!" one of the little boys said.

I Know What Boys Like
One morning, before choir started, I heard one of female students ask the boy she was sitting next to, "Do you like strawberries and sour things?"

The boy nodded, as if he got asked that all the time.

"Why are you asking him that?" I asked the girl.

"It’s good to know what boys like,” she said.

You do you, girl . . .

Betty Boop?
"You look cute today," one of my sixth graders told me. "You look like Betty Boop."

I didn't.

But I was kind of impressed she knew who/what Betty Boop was.

 

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