¡Y el pavito ya está aquí!

Today was our last day of co-op this semester.

On Sunday a few of my ukulele kids (Zoë and three others) joined my primary kids (Zoë and Alexander and three others) to perform Christmas Bells at our stake Christmas Sing-Along evening. That's eight total kids that I managed to pull together. We were small...but mighty. 

Then on Monday our co-op group played at a retirement home down the street. It was a little bit chaotic because I had it on my calendar for 3:00 but then the time was changed to 2:00 but somehow I missed that memo. We ended up getting there around 2:30, just in time to have my kids play their pieces on the piano before our ukulele group performed...and then Miriam accompanied the whole group singing a few pieces. We missed everyone else's solos! But, the kids all did just fine.

At the end of the semester the kids are encouraged to give little thank you notes/gifts to their teachers. I crocheted little trees for my kids to give to their teachers, along with a note of gratitude. I got a few chocolate bars and a lovely collection of notes.  

Most of the notes just said, "Thanks for teaching me," but it was fun to see when the kids were really truly excited about what they were learning. One said, "Thank you, Sister Heiss!" (Many in our co-op attend our same church, though none are in our ward, so they know that I'm Sister Heiss because they see me in the halls at church), "I enjoyed every second of your class. It was so fun! You were a great teacher, and made it very easy to learn the ukulele. I will miss you!"

Another student (who didn't address me at all in the card, but who wouldn't call me Sister Heiss because he doesn't attend our church; he probably calls me Miss Nancy or Mrs. Heiss...or "teacher" because we get that a lot, too) wrote a whole letter inside his card.

Thank you for teaching me the ukulele! The chords were very fun but I think I like tab[lature] a bit better. I don't know if you saw me at the nursing home, but if you didn't [and I didn't...because we were late], I did a solo on Joy to the World in tab [and] I never messed up! (Yes I know that's kind of the point, but I didn't have a lot of time to practice). I think I did a pretty good job, but it has inspired [me] to pick up my guitar again and on Christmas Eve (or even Christmas) I can play all of the great songs I learned and spread Christmas cheer! You know, that reminds me that I'm teaching Ella (my younger sister, age 8.5) how to play the ukulele (she's picked up chords and knowing how to play them but is having some trouble switching in between two chords).

Here's a little something for putting so much time and work into teaching us how to play ukulele:

[insert a little ukulele keychain made from perler beads; fun fact: perler means bead in French...think pearl]

P.S. Don't be afraid to rip some of the paper when taking off the tape

This card brought me oodles of joy! 

One little boy didn't make me a card or anything, but on Sunday evening before we performed he pulled out the first page of Feliz Navidad (which he had printed from off the internet) and was so excited to show. He wanted to know if we could play it in class on Wednesday and I told him that we absolutely could. The music he found was just about excellent for our group—the chords were ones the boys...

I interrupt this to tell you that words cannot describe how nervous I was to teach this class! There's Zoë...and ten little boys. I found myself often defaulting to, "Boys! Boys! Boys!" when I was trying to recapture their attention, but Zoë was there, too. Hopefully next year she can have a few little girls move into her group (kids are divided by age). 

Anyway, the chords were ones the boys—and Zoë—were familiar with, but the tablature was off because it was written for a ukulele with a low G string (our all have high G strings) and it was a little complicated for our group and I only had the first page. So I made my own little arrangement in MuseScore and brought that for the kids to play today. 

They loved it.

Then we just played their old favourites (by request—oh, and listened to that sweet little card-writer play his Joy to the World solo), and added some handbells to a lot of our songs. We finished up playing Al Pavo Pavito. It's a song that we learned on the ukulele before Thanksgiving, but it's also a game that the kids just love playing, so I stood around and played/sang on repeat:

Al pavo pavito pavo
Al pavo pavito sí,
El pavito se ha marchado
¡Y el pavito ya está aquí!

while the kids ran around like crazy. When I get to "aquí" they're supposed to form groups of three and whoever is the odd man out has to gobble like a turkey. 

We kept playing as classes released for recess (which is Alexander's least favourite part of co-op—he asked me today why recess drags on forever but class seems to zoom by and I told him he was suffering the plight of every nerdy introverted child ever), with my two sweet class helpers (fellow co-op moms, who learned to play ukulele right along with the kids) keeping an eye on numbers and either joining in or standing on the sidelines to make sure our "group of three rule" would keep working. 

We soon had all the little kids running around like silly turkeys...and then turned them loose in the field to finish up their recess freestyle.

It was a good semester!