After nap-time (from about 12:45 to 2:15) many of my children are grouchy, groggy, and unfocused. I rotate activities for them, coloring, reading books, doing puzzles, cutting out shapes, and drawing. If all of my children were groggy, this would be the most peaceful time of the day. Sadly, some of my students either don't sleep, or wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and full of talkativeness.
Sometimes I read to them while they are coloring. I don't do this as often as I should, since I will frequently be working on last minute things, like getting their work into their folders, and their folders into their backpacks. Sometimes I will tell them stories, and I will often get requests for me to "read us a story about us, Miss Hall." This is always fun, for all of us, but quickly gets out of hand as they start taking part and going crazy. Since other classes around us are still doing academics, I can't let them go entirely free.
Three times now I have sung them songs that I remember loving when I was a kid. Many of the songs have left them in stitches. The very first time I did it, I had just that week gotten a new student in my class. Her family had come here from Nigeria, and she wasn't particularly happy to be in my class. I had only seen her smile once or twice, and had gotten very few words out of her. However, when I started singing "Alice, Where are You Going?", inserting the children's names in the song, she started chuckling. When I sang it with her name, she busted up. She has a lovely laugh.
Just yesterday I sang them Little Bunny Foofoo. Some of my kids kept coloring, singing some of the words with me, but my littlest boy did the motions with me, except that he bonked himself on the head instead of the field mice. By the third time they made me sing it, two or three students came up next to me to do the motions as well.
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