in cognito

So, during the summer time, I hang up my teacher hat and pick up my gardener hat. It is a welcome reprieve from my daily usual. I love teaching music with every fiber of me but, I realize how much I love this break from teaching and learning. Working at the garden center is methodical. There are the same needs every day. Water the plants, ring up the customers, and all the other things that come with it.
Last year, I went back to school myself and spent the summer being a student of special education. It was wonderful but, I never left thinking about teaching. At the garden center, I thing about plants. Plants are so different than children. Their needs are all about the same and they don't change what they need.

Today I worked in the garden center store ringing up customers, watered, and planted large planter boxes. I then came home and worked on my own vegetable garden and  planters.

I love planting. Planting is so hopeful. Small little seedlings that have the potential to get so large and give so much. Unlike the full size plants they are easy to put into neat rows. In a few weeks the seedlings will be larger and stronger. No fruits or vegetables on them but more hope that they will provide us with food.

Happy planting to all and bring on the garden questions. I prepared with answers to your growing (plants that is) questions.

joy

Today in my second grade classes we listened to the 3rd movement of Beethoven's 6th symphony. This section is called "A Happy Gathering of Country Folk" and is a musical description of a community gathering.  I told my students just that and nothing else. I wrote on the board what they needed to do and stopped talking. They were to then draw what kind of a gathering they thought it was. The resulting images nearly brought me to tears.
Drawings of all sorts of celebrations now fill my room. From birthdays, to religious holidays, to friends sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows. One in particular jumped at me. It says "They are singing with joy" and is filled with people singing together.
*pictures to come when I take them*