Live, Work, Sing

Here's the deal. I love to sing. In the car, while making coffee, to Buckley as he burrows in the crunchy leaves. I started in a duet at the young age of 4 years old while riding in the passenger seat of my Mom's car as we would make the drive from Storm Lake, Iowa to my cousins house in Cherokee. We would snap our fingers to Bad, Bad Leroy Brown or use my ever present hair brush to sing Patsy Cline's Crazy. Secretly I was hoping that Mom and I would be the next Mother/Daughter Country Duo - just like the Judds. Fast forward 25 or so years later and I still love to sing! However, now I get to sing with the most talented group of 1st and 2nd graders. We Opera Sing our Morning Number Count, we clap and sway to our Morning Exercise Song, we sing transitions, Find your table spot, find your table spot, find it now, and we sing our way through numerous Wiggle Songs. However, last week we found ourselves beating a few new beats.

Diggory and his Mom came bursting into the classroom on Wednesday morning anxious to share one of their favorite songs. As it turns out Diggory and his Mom were not the only Racerunner Friends singing Alvin and Chipmunk's version of Tonight, Tonight. As soon as we found the tune on YouTube I had 13 little bodies gathered around the computer wiggling their tails, waving their arms and giggling from depths of their bellies. It was a departure from our usual routine and it made for the most cheerful morning of working together.

Then on Thursday, late in the morning, as students were working away on their communities there was a brand new lull in the classroom. Students were singing their community song "LIVE, WORK, PLAY" as they eagerly designed gravel roads through rural corn fields, manicured lawns among suburban driveways  and a plethora of dogs walking in the city's Central Park.

Finally, we kicked off our Friday sing along with nothing less than Eye of the Tiger which was, as Caroline described, "a huge 1980's hit!" Head bopping, air guitar and drum rolling were in full force as we wrapped up our brand new song as introduced by Caroline's partner family. Each Sing Along, every other Friday, will host a different partner family as they introduce a song of their choice.

Check out our latest edition of Prairie Research photos to see how well our Partner Families worked to create root systems.

Keep on singing families!