Hooray! No new students today. And only two away! Further bonus – they were all in a great mood after visiting “Inside the Brick”, a Lego-based activity centre.
Everything looked set for a successful lesson. As there are only two after today, every minute counts. I was keen to get started.
Well, here’s the rub. The students returned from lunch at the beginning of class, so had an extra half hour of play. This knocked 15 minutes of each of my lessons – a third of the time I had with them.
Drat!! Oh well, adapt or die. So I adapted.
For once, adapting was easy. We just had shorter lessons, staying in the classroom to avoid losing time in the short trek across to the hall and taking up positions on stage for end-of-year concert rehearsals.
Of course, the flip side of this was that the Juniors could not practise their dancing and the seniors could not practise their new entries and exits. Never mind, I told myself. Just focus on what you can do.
I settled my Juniors around the tables and opened my iPad to access the music. I wiped and swiped. They sang.
So far, so good.
My iPad screen has a 2-minute lock on it, and one of my older Juniors asked if he could start the music when we were ready for the second song. Sure, I replied, but noticed that the screen was locked.
Remind me never again to enter a PIN or password in front of a student.
He confidently entered my 4-digit PIN and started the song. I looked at him with a combination of amusement and slight shock. I must remember never to use my computer password in front of you, I told him, with a laugh.
I mentioned a while back in [insert blog] that I created a narrator role for the two older students in my Juniors class. Well, I was very proud of them today. They haven’t completely learnt their words – and neither have I! And, wouldn’t you know, I had left my copy of the words at home. Their copies were…who knew where? Anyway, we flew by the seat of our pants and made up what we couldn’t remember. They weren’t overly rattled and took it all in their stride. Yay! 🙂
In my Seniors class, where we are doing the Explorers play, Wills wanted to know why the new recruit (for whom I wrote a short part [insert blog] ) – had a whole new part instead of taking the part of the student who left last term. Wills didn’t seem to have considered the fact that another student has since learnt this part and incorporated the character into her own. And that it was way too many lines someone to learn with only three lessons to go. Wills is very confident with his ideas, which is great. I think sometimes he thinks he ought to be the teacher!
Well, It’s nearly crunch time. I just hope I get two full lessons with my students over the next fortnight, so we can all feel supremely confident about the concert.
