Telling the kindergarten classes was an eye opening experience to their concept of time. They were excited about my news–when it was time for one class to leave, almost all the kids gave me hugs on the way out, their heads just reaching the level of my belly.  One little girl hugged me and then whispered loudly, “I feeled the baby!”
The next time I saw them was a week later.  The first question was, “Did you have your baby yet?”  They were all astonished to see I was still pregnant.  Anything that takes longer than today seems like a lifetime away to a kindergartener.  In January, trying to explain the concept of “April” or “in four months” was mind-boggling to them.  To them I would pretty much always be pregnant.   

Now it’s the first week of March, and I’m starting to agree with them.

              I feel like I am going to be pregnant FOREVER.  I still have six weeks until my due date.  I am big and round, tired and moody, with heartburn and a daughter in my abdomen who is apparently going for a medal in kickboxing.  I want to wear a sandwich board with the word “FINE” printed on it so everyone will stop asking me how I feel. (If only someone would just say “Looking good” or ask something different like “Any new updates? What’s your baby’s room look like?” but no…) I realized I must have missed officially telling some of the classes that I am pregnant, (absentmindedness is a symptom of pregnancy they say,) so even now some students come in the music room and burst, “Are you PREGNANT?” 

                The last week or so has been particularly tiresome.  Today I had a group of kindergarteners once again.  Someone asked, as usual, if I’d had the baby yet.  I thought to myself, do I LOOK like I’ve had a baby? But I said, “Not yet.  Not for a long time still.”
We sang little songs and danced around the room.  They lined up at the end of our time and I leaned against the wall, winded, waiting for their classroom teacher to pick them up. And then, as they were leaving, one little girl smiled up at me and said, “I can’t wait to see your baby.”  I watched her file out with her classmates, and couldn’t help smiling too.

I am right there with those kindergarteners now.  I wake up every morning and think, I STILL haven’t had this baby?  Six weeks might as well be sixty.  I look in the mirror and the 29 year old in there knows it’ll be worth the wait–the last few months will melt away as soon as I hold my little one in my arms. Yet the inner kindergartener in me can’t remember when I had a waistline, sees pants that won’t stay up, and shoes that are impossible to tie. She is the one I hear the most often, and she says it all: “Can I be done now????”

As an elementary school teacher, I’ve seen first hand how eager children are to be helpful.  They volunteer to pass out papers, hold doors open, carry library books, even wipe tables in the cafeteria.  They’ll do anything that can set them apart as special because they helped.  There are no shortages of job seekers.  Unfortunately, as these kids get older, this attitude often changes into “what’s in it for me?”  In middle school students will volunteer if they get out of class or some other special privilege, but many won’t bother otherwise.  By the time these students reach high school age and the opportunities to volunteer in and outside school are plentiful, they are no longer interested.  Younger children need to be given more opportunities to help others and volunteer, so that as they grow they will continue in this way as high school students and adults.               

Many children live in a very small world—mainly their family home and school.  In order to teach them about the importance of volunteering, they must be introduced to a larger world outside of their own.  Elementary schools can have a big influence in this area.  All too often, though, children are only encouraged to “volunteer” to fundraise for the school itself.  While many of these fundraisers provide things such as library books and gym equipment, schools should take the time to include events in their calendars that help a larger community.  An excellent example of this is the Empty Bowls project. 

Empty Bowls is an event where students make and decorate ceramic bowls as part of school art projects.  The school then puts on a soup and bread meal for parents and local citizens.  Empty Bowls suggests a donation of $10 per meal.  The people coming to the meal select a bowl to eat out of, and then take the bowl with them as a reminder of the event.  Students not only create the bowls, but then volunteer at the meal helping to serve the food.  In addition, Empty Bowls encourages whoever puts on one of their events to include hunger education as part of the event.  This is an excellent opportunity for teachers to expand the world of their students.  The school can designate which hunger organization will receive their proceeds, be it a local food bank or somewhere on the other side of the globe.  The happy little helpers of elementary age find their world expanded and can learn the value of helping someone they don’t even know.               

Children should be shown that small things can make a difference. A child can draw a picture or make cookies for nursing home patients.  He can pick a toy and donate it to Toys for Tots.  Parents and other relatives can initiate these things at a  low cost while teaching their youngsters the benefits of helping people—one person at a time.  A child feels the joy of gratitude just as an adult does.  To be able to see someone face to face that they have helped will cause many children to want to see the happiness they’ve brought to someone again.         

Finally, a child must be shown she makes a difference—as a child and as an individual.  An excellent example of this is ten year old Arkansas native Emily Bullington.  Emily attended her church with her mother and heard missionaries speak about hungry people in Africa.  She was so moved that she told her mother how she felt about it and decided to start a lemonade stand to raise money for African people.  What started as an effort by one little girl has blown into over $8000 of money raised.  She and her stand have been welcomed in places all over the state, including Little Rock.  Her “pie in the sky” goal is $360,000 to build an orphanage in Kenya, and as her success grows, it is becoming more of a reality.           

All of these efforts take the help of adults: teachers, parents, relatives, community leaders and volunteers.  But consider the harvest that could be sown if we all participate.  We will reap a generation of helpers, leaders, friends and neighbors who will learn earlier than some of us did how much better they can make the world.  I’m willing to invest in that future—are you?

 Many other countries have made it illegal to talk on a hand-held cell phone while driving, including Australia, the United Kingdom, and China.  I think the United States needs to follow suit.  There are enough distractions on the road without adding a phone conversation.  Pass the phone to a passenger or have the patience to wait for your next stop.  If not, you or someone else may be using that phone to call 911.

Looking back, due to school cancelations and holidays I was not aware of ahead of time, I ended up cutting two vocal songs, a 4^th grade recorder number and a 5^th grade instrument number. I predict that with those songs the program would’ve been about 45 minutes long. As it ended up, it was about 25. That’s short in my opinion—a lot of parents saved seats longer than that amount of time before the show started. But, it was a quality 25 minutes, rather than 45 minutes of the kids not knowing words to songs or forgetting their speaking lines.

    At both schools there were several students who did not show up. This is something I anticipate at each program, but it’s still a little frustrating if some of those students had a speaking part. For this reason, over the past few years I have chosen programs that do not have a set cast—meaning, the lines between songs can stand independently and be spoken by any student. I get a lot more students involved in speaking parts that way, and then, if one doesn’t show up, only one line is missing instead of an entire character. There were only two instances between both shows where I had to do some quick thinking with someone who was missing and the line was absolutely necessary—in one case I simply fed the line to another student, who spoke it into the microphone, and in the other, because it was in the middle of a song, I said it myself.

    Both schools’ programs were identical as far as the music was concerned. However, at Woodland, the evening began with an art show in the cafeteria. Students and parents walked down aisles of tables with artwork—pieces from each class in each grade. From there they came into the gymnasium, and at the appointed time, we had the music program. This was something they had done at the school the year before, so it was already in place. It’s a great idea—a 25 minute music program doesn’t seem quite as short when an art show has been open for the half hour before it began. Next year I plan to approach the art teacher at Monger, my other school, and see if this is something she would be willing to do. She already does an excellent job of hanging artworks in the hall outside the room we share and in the school library, so I have a feeling she’d like participating in an evening show.

    I was unable to do so this year, but in the future I plan to videotape the shows to play for the participating classes. I hope it will show them they did something to be proud of and help them continue to be excited about music. Something I also plan to do next year is have a performance during the school day for the rest of the school to come and see. I was able to do this for the Christmas program this year, but again, time constraints made it impossible for the spring concert.

    I have the program date marked with the secretary for next year—it will be the last week of school before spring break. Had that been the case this year, I would’ve had three more weeks in which to get the students ready. (This year’s date was already on the books when I came to the school.) I feel like I made a lot of planning mistakes this year, but they will make next year smoother now that I know what I’m getting myself into.

                I’m an elementary school music teacher and found out I was pregnant in late August, just as the year was starting.  I’m planning to take my maternity leave starting at Spring Break and return to work in the fall.  I waited until after Christmas break to tell my students about the pregnancy.  Some of them figured it out beforehand, but not the little ones.  That first week back in January I sat with my kindergarteners in a circle and told them that I was going to have a baby.  They were very excited, and every child whose mother or aunt or sister had had a baby recently had to tell me all about it.  I have 3 kindergarten classes, so I went through this 3 times.  When it was time for one class to leave, almost all the kids gave me hugs on the way out, which was hilarious because their head level was right at my “baby” level.  One little girl hugged me and then whispered loudly, “I feeled the baby!”

                The next time I saw the kindergarteners was a week later.  First question in every class was, “Did you have your baby yet?”  They were all astonished to see I was still pregnant.  In January, trying to explain the concept of “April” and “four months away” was mind-boggling to them.  To those kindergarteners I would pretty much always be pregnant.   

                Now that it’s the first week of March, I am starting to agree with them.  I feel like I am going to be pregnant FOREVER.  I still have six weeks until my due date.  I am big and round, tired and moody, with heartburn and a daughter in my abdomen who is apparently going for a medal in kickboxing.  I sometimes dread my job just because of all the well-wishing teachers who are constantly asking me how I’m feeling.  Because I see several classes a week, I have missed officially telling some of them that I am pregnant, so even now some students come in the music room and burst, “Are you PREGNANT?” 

                The last week or so has been particularly tiresome, and I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse.  At the end of today, though, I had a group of kindergarteners once again.  Someone asked if I’d had the baby yet.  I thought to myself, do I LOOK like I’ve had a baby? But I always say, “not yet.  Not for a long time still.”

                We had a nice time in class of singing little songs and dancing around the room.  They lined up at the end of our time to be picked up.  As they were leaving, one little girl smiled up at me and said, “I can’t wait to see your baby.”  It was such a sweet, simple thing to say. 

                I am right there with those kindergarteners now.  I wake up every morning and think, I STILL haven’t had this baby?  Six weeks might as well be sixty.  I look in the mirror and my inner kindergartener cries out, “Can I be done now????”      

  Go to any high school activities director and you will get a list of ways students can volunteer as a part of a club or special school event.  Go to a church and ask the youth group leader what their teens do to volunteer in the area, and he will give you a list as long as his arm.  During the summer teens can find organizations all over their cities and towns in which to volunteer, from soup kitchens to the local zoo.  These are all wonderful things, but what about younger children? 

                If you’ve ever spent any length of time with a child under the age of 12, you will find that child acting in a selfish way—hoarding all his chocolate chip cookies instead of sharing, running as fast as he can to get the best ball in the bin at recess, trying to get the biggest prize for winning a game.  You don’t need to teach a child these things—it’s human nature.  By the time some of these students reach high school age and the opportunities to volunteer are plentiful, they are no longer interested.  It is important to offer these opportunities to younger children so they learn the value of helping others before the desire to do so is lost. 

                Elementary schools can have a big influence in this area.  All too often, though, children are only encouraged to “volunteer” to fundraise for the school itself instead of local causes around the area.  While many of these fundraisers provide things for the schools such as library books and gym equipment, schools should take the time to include events in their calendars that help the community at large.  For example, many schools all over the country participate in Empty Bowls meals.  Empty Bowls is an event where students make and decorate ceramic bowls as part of school art projects, then the school puts on a soup and bread meal for parents and local citizens.  Empty Bowls suggests a donation of $10 per meal.  The people coming to the meal select a bowl to eat out of, and then take the bowl with them as a reminder of the event.  This project could be simplified for very young students, having them decorate a plastic bowl.  Empty Bowls encourages whoever puts on one of their events to include hunger education as part of the event.  The school can designate which hunger organization will receive their proceeds, and Empty Bowls charges no fee for using their name or idea. 

                Churches seem a readily available place where children could volunteer, but again, it seems that most children are not given the opportunity until they are in middle school.  Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana, encourages families to volunteer together.  They have a Second Saturday ministry in which volunteers of all ages can come to the church the second Saturday of the month in the mornings and are taken by bus to places all over the area—from helping at the church to local food banks.  The church has no age stipulation.  Once a year the church has a Food Drop in which church members purchase and then distribute several semi-trucks full of food around the area.  Hundreds of children can be seen at this event—carrying boxes and going with their parents door to door to give people much needed food and toiletries. 

                Finally, it is the parents’ job to teach children the importance of helping others.  This can be done in very simple ways.  Christmastime is ideal: a child can choose a toy and donate it to Toys for Tots.  Several families could come together and sponsor a local family.  During the rest of the year children can do simple things such as draw a picture for someone in a nursing home or hospital, or bake cookies for someone who has been ill. 

                If parents, local schools and churches can teach these ideas early, then you will reap children like ten year old Emily Bullington, who heard about starving people in Kenya and started a lemonade stand to do something to help.  She has raised over $2000 so far, setting up her now-famous stand all over Arkansas.  Her goal is $8000.   Her story is inspiring, and it begins with a church and a supportive family.  More children can be like Emily, if only we as parents, as a community, will convince them they can make a difference. 

In one of those ironies that make life interesting, the University of Colorado, which dismissed controversial professor Ward Churchill because of doubts about his academic qualifications, has appointed a president who doesn’t have any.

So instead of a nomination for, say, “The Bucket List,” a film that everyone I know has loved and which has a positive message about getting old and sick (and which critics attacked, naturally, as too “sentimental”), we get a nomination for “The Savages,” a movie about getting old and sick that is so depressing, you want to jump off a building.

                I actually had combo classes all day—I saw 3 sets of two classes together for an hour each.  This helps the kids hear what songs sound like with a bigger group.  (I get to hear it, too, which helps me breathe a little easier.)  I was able to get the kids in a good arrangement—tall kids in the back, short in the front and to tell them what to expect at our dress rehearsal—a practice with everyone—next week. 

                I have several dress rehearsals under my belt, and think I now run them pretty smoothly.  I have the kids together in the gym (or wherever the performance area is) for about two hours.  I ask their classroom teachers to stay in groups of two for half hour shifts for monitoring.  All the teachers I’ve worked with have always been fine with this because, even with the half hour shift, they still get a longer prep time than normal.  I always try to have double-up class practices beforehand to get the kids in their performance positions.  Then when I have 100 kids in the gym as opposed to 40 in my classroom, they already know where they are supposed to arrange themselves.  I tried doing this arranging at my first few dress rehearsals as a new teacher, and sometimes it would take up to 45 minutes of the practice—what a waste of time! 

                I’m sending a second note home this coming week also, just to remind parents about the program.  It will be the exact same note I sent home initially.  It tells the parents when the kids have to be there and what to wear.  I’m really big on not making kids buy special clothes for a program, seeing that a lot of my kids come from low income families.   In this program they are supposed to wear jeans, tennis shoes and shirts that are a bright color.  My only stipulations are 1) no holes in the pants, and 2) the students must be able to lift their arms completely over their heads without their stomachs showing.   This time I laughingly told them, “Hey, you don’t want to see MY pregnant tummy sticking out, so I don’t want to see yours either!” 

                Things are coming together better than I hoped, but I’ll still be glad when it’s over….

          The SFSP is handled by the US Department of Agriculture, under the Federal Food and Nutrition Service, but most states run their own SFSP through educational agencies.  One can easily find sites that serve summer meals in the local area at the Indiana Department of Education’s website.  Most SFSPs are combined with a summer activity program like summer school or day camps.  These are called enrolled sites.  Only children who are participating in activities at these sites can receive meals.  There are also open sites, which are set up in low income communities and open to area children based on census information.  Any child from the area may receive meals at an open site.  Finally, there are sites for children of migrant workers; these sites can serve up to three meals a day instead of the typical two.  Sites can be in schools, parks, churches, camps, housing projects, even Indian reservations.

There are many ways to get involved in SFSPs.  One way is to become a sponsor.  Public and private nonprofit schools, organizations, camps, universities and colleges are all eligible to become sponsors, as well as units of government from local to state level.  Sponsors attend state training, locate possible sites for meal distribution, hire staff, arrange for how meals are made available and prepare claims for reimbursement.  A second way to become involved is to run a site.  Running a site is more hands on than sponsoring—these people supervise meals as they are given out, keep daily records of meals served and handle food storage and site sanitation.  For people and organizations that do not have the facilities or financial ability to be sponsors, volunteering is always welcome.  Volunteers that facilitate camps or other activities are just as important as those who prepare the meals the participants eat. 

Unfortunately, only 15 % of students who receive meals during the school year participate in SFSPs.  This is due to two main factors: lack of information (the parents are not aware of the program) and the amount of paperwork, i.e. “hoops” sponsors must jump through to open and maintain a site.  Fortunately, in the last two years the programs have been officially simplified—limiting a great deal of the paperwork sponsors must complete.  In 2006, The Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns, designated the week of June 4 -10, as Summer Food Service Week, to raise awareness of the program and to promote the opening of more sites. 

Summer Food Service Programs are beneficial for parents with low incomes who come to depend on the free meals their children receive throughout the school year.  The programs help organizations like day camps and summer schools provide meals to add to their programs.  They also provide a place for children to go in their own communities that are safe, and where they will have quality summer activities.  With many sites all over the country, children can continue being nourished through the summer as they have been during the school year, and with the many opportunities in these programs, adults and organizations can easily become part of the process. 

    The article I read this week took place in an elementary school. I share a room with one of my school’s art teachers, and she has done ceramic bowls with kids from kindergarten through sixth grade, so I know it’s something any age school child could participate in. What I like about this project is that it also encourages the arts—students make something beautiful that serves as a vessel for food, but also as a reminder. It’s nice to find a project that someone outside of a classroom teacher can organize and initiate.