Old Friends, New Friends

One of the best things about being on the road is running into dear friends from previous conferences. Della Johnson was on hand in Louisville and so I had lots of southern-style hugs and a quick catch-up of places we'd each had the opportunity to visit. She was even clever enough to think of posing a Mr. & Mrs. Clement picture!

National Family Literacy

Dateline. Louisville, KY. Galt House. My first National Family Literacy Conference. We left the testosterone-trio of grandsons at the beach in Daytona to travel cross-country to this amazing event. To be a presenter at an event where Marlee Matlin provides the keynote, is to think I've stretched & grown a bit in the past year. I remember seeing her on Broadway years ago, in "Children of a Lesser God" and being impressed beyond reason at her capability, so it was amazing to have my name in the same program as hers. The response to my workshop was uplifting. These were all sorts of professionals wearing all sorts of hats. The common denominators being reading, books, parents, families and raising everyone up, by raising up reading.

I got to hear just a taste test of the introductory remarks for the event. The thought that stayed with me is that much of a child's performance in their elementary school era can be predicted by the reading level and competancy of the child's mother. This feels something like "teach a person to fish" mentality. Teach a mother to read, if you really want to impact the educational life of the child. Meet the people above who are doing just that: creating projects for adult literacy to impact the children.

Debbie's Dozen Directions!!!

In my quest to start-over-at-the-very-beginning (with my blog: it's purpose, helpfulness, intent and usefulness) I thought that this would be the perfect time to outline my suggestions to teachers -- librarians and fellow performers working with young children, particularly young children with special needs -- and give you a summary & some quick tips as to how I approach and organize a music/circle/concert time.


Drumroll.... Debbie's Dozen Directions:


1. Smile!!! Enjoy!!! Laugh!!! Have fun!!!!
Now this might sound obvious, but it still needs to be number one. The laughter is always number one in my book. Now that the brain research is "proving" that children learn best, easiest and retain more while they're laughing, giggling & engaged with delight, you have the science behind the silliness factor. A not so obvious corollary that I particularly love? Be sure you tell the children, "Here comes the funny part." What do they do then? LAUGH!!! Give them both permission, a channel and direction for their laughter.


2. Start with FAMILIAR Choices!!!!
The newer you are to the group, the longer it's been since you've been together, the younger the children, the more needs the children have -- then the more 'familiar' your first song selections should be, to allow for everyone to 'relax.' You want the kiddos to be saying, "AH-Ha! I know that one!! I'm good at that one!! I know how that goes! I can do that!!" (That's how you win over the anxious, the queasy/uneasy wee ones.)


3. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat!!!! FOUR Times!
Don't you just love that the brain research has now PROVEN that children learn through repetition? While that may have been clear to anyone that's ever worked with children --it is now research tested and PROVEN and approved! What I did appreciate learning is that the magic number is apparently: FOUR. It takes four times, for a typical, average child to learn something 'new' that is DAP (developmentally appropriate practise/play). The first time through, it's all about you. You'd better be smiling, you're performing at that point. The second time your group is beginning to anticipate where you're going. The third time some of your bright, gifted/talented are with you & chiming in. The fourth time? VOILA! They've got it!!! Now obviously if there are special needs in the room, the magic number may be 14 or 44 or 444, but the same advice applies: REPEAT!


4. Follow Your Rituals and Recipes!!
Create 'rituals' and then think of them as 'recipes.' Come together on the rug with a familiar transition experience. (Same music playing every time they leave their learning stations or same rhyme being said, or same tambourine flourish beckoning.) Begin with everyone seated and gathered round. Start familiar. Repeat familiar often. Have an opening number, a welcome song and start there. Think of this as the theme song for your favorite show. The more they can trust you, the more relaxed and participatory they will be. ***Remember from Dr. Pam Schiller, "Trust is job one."


5. Be Willing to Take a Risk
While familiarity and comfort-level are critical to 'success' in my book, it's also important to "take-a-risk" once you've established your trust-worthiness. If you are truly a 'novice' at the performing concept, the risk may be your willingness to allow the children to move. You may be very comfortable when all the children are seated neatly on the rug like pretzels with their hands in their laps. It may feel like a huge risk to you professionally to allow the children to stand up and get moving, but take a deep breath and allow for movement. After an active/moving/bouncing/jumping song have your next selection require apt attention while seated. Then pat yourself on the back for the successful transition, exhale and SMILE!!!Children love when things get faster. [I have an on-going interview under-way, with an expert on dance and movement catalogued here. Connie Dow is happy to answer your dance/movement questions!]

6. Begin Slowly. Play with the Speed

Start with the familiar in a very methodical/slow speed and then start cranking it up faster and faster and faster! Get just fast enough for them to turn into a giggling machine of nonsense. Whew! That was fun. (see rule #1 above!) "Let's do it again!! (See rule #3!) [See this YouTube Video of mine for the big ending that gets faster & faster.]

7. Choose a Comfortable Key/Pitch
If you really aren't a musician this may be the 'trickiest' bit on the list. Do your best to choose a starting note that is comfortable for your voice. Take 'note' (get it musicians? LOL) if the children's voices seem comfortable in the key you've selected. Try it at home first. No kidding folks, it helps to practise.


8. Animate & Exaggerate Your Face
Maybe this should be number one? Your face is your most important instrument. Make eye contact. Wink at the child who you need in your posse. SMILE (did I already mention that?) How many faces can you make? Your body & your posture follow right after your face. What amazing things can you do with your hands and arms? Your legs? Now's the time to show off. These children have grown up with an environment that 'explodes' with the click of a mouse. Make your 'show' worthy of Broadway.


9. Watch the Children for Clues & Ideas
This is probably my favorite one! The children are FILLED with ideas. They are full of perfect choreography and movement and their response will give your adult/stuffy/stationary body plenty of ideas for how to move to Monkey Fun. Watch them. Tune in. Mirror their movements. What a fantastic way to honor a child: to move your body as they are moving.


10. Have Your Props Handy!!
That does imply that you have props, right? Well, for Pete's sake, have them handy! That implies you have a plan, right? You know what comes next, right? Have your shakers, your puppets, your doo-dahs, and your razz-a-ma-tazz right there with you in your picnic basket of delight.


11. Close Your Eyes, Surprise!!
Use the inherent thrill of the surprise-factor. Ask the children to close their eyes!!! So simple. So truly amazing. Costs nothing. So throw-back and low-tech. Yet PRICELESS!! Even with the most mature elementary age students, the simple invitation to close their eyes is a magic carpet ride to use their imaginations. What could possibly come next? They love it. (See evidence pictured above.) This moment of suspended animation allows you to reach into your pic-a-nic basket and pull out the next surprise. TA-DA!!!


12. Novelty, Novelty and More Novelty
The brain research suggests that once you have them relaxed and trusting and learning and at ease, it's time to introduce some pizzazz! Novelty! New song or new puppet or new instrument or new hat or new dance or new flannel board or new floogle woogle bugle horn or new routine. This is when you really get a chance to make it memorable. That's what all the set up was for -- this moment at the pinnacle of fun. This is often the point when I don my jungle tutu and transform into a lion for a thrilling Lion Prowl.


What would a twelve be without a thirteen? (Long time readers understand my fascination with the baker's dozen.)


13. BONUS**** Have fun with a Closing Ritual
However you end, however you conclude.... do it the same way every time. Have a great big ending. I'm all about the big ending. Do it with style. Leave them begging for more. Always better to leave them asking for more fun than to over-tire an audience. Know when to say when and close with delight. I typically close every family concert with the singing of my classic, "You're Wonderful." (Click here for a YouTube version.)

Jumpin' for JOY!!!

"GeeGee!!! GeeGee!!!" Is there anything better than hearing the two syllables repeated for your grandma-name? First and foremost it is an honor and a privilege to be a grandparent. The obvious truth inherent in that concept is that you have lived long enough to have garnered the honor. Some are not given the blessing of long life. The other reality? Your child needs to have lived long enough to produce an heir..... another blessing that is not granted to all. And thirdly, your child needs to choose to have a child -- biologically, through adoption or through the combination of families. In any case, grand-parenting is all you've read on bumper stickers: the best job possible!

I recognize all of my blessings when a child is squeeling, "GeeGee, GeeGee!!" These are our Denver big-boys, joining us in Daytona for spring break. Spring break is the sand-castle of all vacations. From the humdrum & often overcast schedule of school, work, with all the familiar patterns that make up one's life errupts the delight of a new destination, new sights, sand, sun and sweet adventures together. No wonder these boys are jumping for joy. They have a new audience to impress: grandparents! Stories can be shared all over again.

Spring Artist Play Things

What does everyone like to do on their wedding anniversary? Tromp around the bayous and look at art being created!!! That's my choice anyhow. This was our first Florida Plein Air Festival. Enjoyed all of the possibilities in the media.

Get it? RainbowsWithinReach!!

RainbowsWithinReach Redo

So let's start all over. Rewind. Start at the beginning. The very beginning. Where did the name, "Rainbows Within Reach" originate? What's the back story? [Insert mellow instrumental music backdrop. Cue to camera three. Action.]

Back when I was a freshman at Wittenberg University, I like many others was taking an intro Ed Psych class where one of our requirements was to make a series of classroom observations. I remember carpooling in my mini-skirt, with a pack of fellow adult teenagers to a kindergarten classroom. With clipboard in hand, I sat on the perimeter of the action, as instructed, and watched the morning's activities unfold.

It would have been the fall of 1975 (talk about the DeLorean time-machine.) A lifetime ago. I remember like yesterday observing the interactions of those little wonders. There were building block centers and writing tables not too unlike classrooms I visit these days making an author visit. Yet, in the midst of all of that bee hive of activity, I was struck that morning by one little lone fellow who seemed particularly quiet. He seemed without friends. The other children easily visited with one another, babbling happy kindergarten chatter and he stood hanging his head alone. I took notes on his behavior. His lack of inter-action. His minimal conversation. His continual habit of looking at his shoes when someone came near. He had captured my heart.

As the other children grouped and regrouped he was always left to himself. As each chunk of minutes passed I wanted more & more to reach out to him. Even then I suppose I was something of a champion for the under-dog. But I was also one to follow rules and we'd been instructed not to interact -- only to observe. I may have let slip out a wink or possibly two in his general direction.

Before long the morning was concluding. Children were preparing for dismissal. Our carpoolers were gathering personal paraphenalia to depart. As I crossed the room, little-loner-boy came directly to me and looking me in the eye whispered, "Did you see the rainbow?" I was quite started to learn that he could speak, much less that he had addressed me personally. My mind quickly reeled through responses to his simple question and I settled on honesty. "No, I didn't see it."

He persisted, a little bolder, "Did you see the rainbow?" He was tugging at my sleeve, as I was attempting to be kind yet catch my ride back to campus. "No, honey I didn't see the rainbow."

After several more rounds he became quite insistent. He took my hand and gruffly pulled me over to the classroom aquarium and pointed. "Do you see it now? Do you see the rainbow?" Try as I might peering down from above, seeing the top of the little porcelein castle, I continued with my honesty approach. "No. No, I don't see a rainbow."

By this point he was getting more desperate in his whispers and he croaked out, "THERE! Look right there!!! And then he pulled me down so sharply I was on my knees, when he squared up my face on an even parallel with his. I'd gone from being startled to being genuinely knocked off balance.

Suddenly my eyes gazed into the aqarium at the exact eye level as my young guide, and there, right EXACTLY where he had been pointing, there was a rainbow. HIS rainbow! A complete and absolute prism of colors, RIGHT THERE. From his perspective the entire aquarium was ablaze with color. Right there within reach, within reach all along. It was at that moment that my face lit up and he knew that I was seeing it. I was seeing the splendor. He had forced me to look at the world from his angle and he knew that I'd finally gotten it. The light bulb went off.

The rainbow had been there all along. It had been within reach. It just took a diligent and passionate observer to share his treasured perspective with me. It was on that morning that I was hooked. It was on that morning that I pledged to look at the world from his perspective whenever possible. To this day I think of the amazing lesson I learned in kindergarten that morning.

It was at that moment, while my peers were cavorting in the parking lot, in that brief few tidbits when time was suspended, that I vowed that I would do my best, my very best to remain on the eye level of those I'd interact with, in order that I could see from their perspective, in order that we might share the rainbows within reach.

And as has been said before...... now you know the rest of the story.

What is this Blog About?

Indeed. What IS this blog about? Who are the intended readers? Why would they be coming here to follow along? And what on earth do these questions have to do with a rusty old truck?

Thanks for asking. This is the summer of introspection. This is the summer of growth and expansion. I have kept this little journal of my travels for nearly three years now. It has kept me pleasantly happy over these 1303 posts to date. Now I really want to work at figuring out how to get this diary of mine out to a wider audience. I am so grateful to my family members and friends for checking in periodically and seeing what I've been up to -- but now I'm ready to stretch my wings and fly further from the nest.

I recently discovered the site "WeTeach" and am delighted to have found a group of bloggers there who offer advice, insight, suggestions and encouragement. One of my new pals has suggested enrolling in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Program and I went leaping at the opportunity. So in the coming weeks I hope that you'll notice several things happening here. I hope that you notice there are more comments being attached to individual blog posts. I hope that you see my blog being tweeted out to the educational & creative communities (no, I don't know the first thing about Twitter) and new developments in blog hops, blog rolls, blog lists emerging as I learn my way around new tools and linkies and the like.

All this to be a better resource. All this to share the amazing ideas and responses that I experience. All this to offer my ideas to a wider segment of the cyber-community. We'll see what I can accomplish in the next 31 days -- or even 31 weeks!!

So I have been asked to have some introspection about just who this blog is to serve & consider their needs. So what do rusty trucks have to do with early childhood literacy? Children's music? Hmmmm. All I can tell you is that these photos of that old truck make me happy. And you know when Debbie's happy, everyone can be happy? Somethin' like that? I do have a pretty broad range of interests.......... twill work on the 'focus' aspect through introspection.