I started the K-5 play today. I forget just how little Kindergarteners are. This play is going to be much harder than the other one, because of the K-2 kids. I don't have a lot of experience with that age group, not since I was that age. 2nd graders were the youngest kids to go to camp, and all I really remember about them was that they had to go to the bathroom just about every half hour and it was like having a bunch of frightened white mice. They were quiet, they were well behaved, they were pretty much everything that gets spooky about campers after about half a day.
The play's going to be a bunch of circus acts, basically skits. The idea is that they're going to help come up with and perform their own circus acts. There are twenty of them, give or take, and rehearsals start tomorrow.
My mom said it best, Juniors are the best age level, 4th 5th and 6th graders are old enough to be competant without being "too cool" for stuff. If I stay on next year, maybe I'll consider breaking it up that way, K-3, 4-6, and 7/8, and just do three shows. Because really, how much do 5th graders have in common with 1st graders?
I am still terrified of parents. I've been walking around under a cloud of fear all day that the meeting didn't make any better. I wish I could look older, but then, if they have any first year teachers, they ARE the same age as me.
It reminds me of my dad. My mother says when he was student teaching, he used to stop by her apartment every day before school to throw up. It wasn't the students, either, it was the other teachers. I know what to expect from my own teachers, I don't know what to expect from this unknown entity who can decide whatever they want.
One of the moms stopped and said she'd heard the first show went well, and loves the idea for the circus, so that makes me feel OK, but I just feel like they're all glaring at me thinking, "She wants to do what? With our children?"
I did have one mom show up half an hour late (and got there as the meeting was ending). I have a feeling I may have a lot to say about her. She's a talker. Nice woman, but a talker. From her I kinda got the impression that the school was a lot better when her older son (now in high school) attended it. I think she liked the previous superintedant because she said that the bookkeeper and the secretaries "run that school... now." This was kinda the impression I'd gotten before then, along with my own personal impressions that the guy is decent enough, but pretty much ineffectual.
A couple Saturdays ago, I dreampt that all of the smoke alarms at my grandparent's house were going off. The next morning, I woke up and had a strong desire to e-mail my father about it, but then figured it wasn't his problem and didn't.
I found out later that that same night, my mother woke up from a dream in an absolute panic. She'd dreampt that one of her kids was screaming for her. She originally thought it was me, but said she thought twice about it and realised that even if I were in trouble probably wouldn't scream for her, and decided it was my brother.
She told my father about it the next morning, and he said he'd had a strange dream about the same time. His had something to do with my grandparent's house, and fire, or at least smoke.
Weird eh? Oh, and my brother? Did he have a fourth connection to all this? Nope. He's left out of the family peculiarities.