To Reschedule or Not to Reschedule
Due to icy roads school was cancelled yesterday. Along with school my Pre-K to 3rd grade Christmas program got cancelled too. Now the problem begins…….Scheduling a date for this program is tricky at best in September. At this time during the year it’s almost impossible to get the MS gym. Right now the only day I can put the concert on is 12/20. Now here’s the issue. I had planned on doing some neat Christmas related but not program related stuff this last 2 weeks of school with the kids. The 1st grade were going to watch The Nutcracker which features one of the songs they have been working on for the program. Every kid should see the Nutcracker at least once I think. The 3rd graders were going to work on a podcast. But if we reschedule the concert I won’t have the volume of time I need to complete these projects. What to do???
December 11th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I had to reschedule my Christmas concert my first year teaching in Peoria. It’s such a hassle, but you just can’t get around freezing rain!
Can you show the 1st graders just the excerpt of the Nutcracker with the song they did for the program? That would still give them some of the benefits, although I agree that it isn’t as good as seeing the whole thing.
The 3rd grade podcast project is a harder one, since I’m guessing there isn’t a good way to do a mini-podcast that would be fast enough to finish in the time you’ll have available. Can you adjust the content of the project so it would fit for the spring instead of Christmas? Or could you do something winter-related (but not holiday-related) so you could start before break and pick it up again in January?
December 11th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Christy,
After talking with my Elementary Prinical, we came upon a comprise. We are going to do 2 during school assemblies to give the kids a chance to perform their music. Those assemblies will happen this week on Thursday and Friday. That will still give me enough time to get most of my goals achieved for The Nutcracker and podcasting. It does mean that very few parents will be able to come watch and that’s a sad thing. The last time we had this problem we just cancelled the program altogether. So this is better than that option. Plus it’s better for my sanity!
December 11th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
That actually is a good compromise, even though it’s hard to have fewer parents attend. I’m glad you figured out a solution where you can do the learning projects with your students and that lets you keep as much of your sanity is possible for a musician in December.
Now if we can just figure out when my horn choir is rescheduling our concert that was canceled last weekend. It’ll probably end up being in January. Oh well–people will just have to listen to Jingle Bells then!