Friends, I have not updated my blog lately. I took a vacation at the end of
July. Upon my return, the school year began, and I've been crazy busy ever
since.
So there you have it, my excuses. But I have compiled a ton of material these
past few days because, as my faithful readers know, my students are nothing if
not entertaining. In other words, be prepared for a few back-to-school posts
in the coming weeks.
Let's start with the first day of school.
It began with a wardrobe malfunction. The hook on the collar of my dress got
attached to my guitar case, the cool kind of backpack case that makes you look
like a rock star. But I didn't feel like a rock star when three other teachers
had to help me unhook myself from my guitar.
"We might need to cut you out of your dress," one of my teachers friends said
as I gasped in horror.
I had spent a long time deciding which dress I would wear my first day of
school. It was one of my LOFT favorites.
Luckily, the teachers unhooked me successfully, and my dress emerged in one
piece.
"This day is already awesome," I muttered to myself, after expressing my
eternal gratitude to the teachers who had set me free.
I entered my classroom and found the
sweetest message from my principal left on the board. She signed it with
"Happy Singing!"
After settling in, I went outside to help direct kids to their
classrooms.
"What does the blue on my mood ring mean?" a fourth grader asked me as I
walked him to his teacher's door. "Does it mean anxious and hyper?"
"Is that how you feel?"
"Kind of."
"I think blue is a calming color. Why not try feeling calm?" I suggested.
On my way back to the music room, I ran into a few crying parents who had just
dropped off kindergartners for the first time.
"I'm happy," one of them assured me. "Really, I am."
Later that day, my husband, Dan, continued his annual tradition of sending me
a first-day-of-school album. This year, he emailed me a Veruca Salt album from
2006, not super current, but I'm mostly stuck in the distorted guitar era of
the '90s and early 2000's anyway.
The first graders came to music later that afternoon, and they were quite
concerned as to whether or not I remembered them.
"Of course I remember you, ______," and I called them by their names as proof.
One little boy said, "You remember my hair."
"Okay, sure. I guess I remember that too," I replied.
Copy Cat, my trusty sidekick, explains the music room rules to the
kindergartners and first graders every year because they won’t listen to me
spout off a bunch of procedures otherwise. Copy Cat was very tired by the end
of the first day.
And I found out I have yet another "grand”student, meaning a child whose
parent was a student of mine once upon a time. This has happened more than
once recently. Yeah, I'm an old woman.
Stay tuned ♫♩ for more back-to-school fun in the coming weeks! (Pun intended. I
am a music teacher after all.)
For the latest blog updates, visit and "like"
Rebecca Turner-Duggan.
