Improvising

Ever leave your house for work and have that nagging feeling that you've forgotten something? I get that feeling almost everyday, and I'm always forced to go through a mental checklist of everything I'll need for the day before I walk out the door. When I left the house today though, I had a stronger-than-usual nagging feeling that I didn't have everything I needed. I had done my mental checklist though, and so I ignored the feeling. When I got to my school this morning, nothing seemed awry. I began my lesson confidently with my first group of students. Then I got about halfway through today's lesson, and reached into my big bag to get out my supplies for our toilet paper bunny craft... That's when I realized that I had forgotten to bring my toilet paper rolls!!! I had put them in separate bag, and didn't put the bag in my car! Panic immediately set in. I now had no project for my kiddos to make, and they were all waiting... starring at me with their cute little faces and asking, "Can we make bunnies like in the story?" Think, think, think I was telling myself. And that's when I decided I could improvise.

The original plan was to glue the bunny parts onto a toilet paper roll. Then I had popsicle sticks that I would help them stick through the bottom of the toilet paper rolls so they could make their bunnies hop around and say "Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!" like in our story! But I quickly realized that I could let them glue all the bunny parts onto the popsicle sticks themselves, and they would still be able to make them hop around. It worked! The kids loved them! And they turned out cute... not as cute as I would have liked, but cute enough!



So we had bunnies on sticks hopping around, pretending to climb over fences, under walls, and through water to get to Mr. McGreeley's veggie garden (I was Mr. McGreeley in the puppet play). The lesson lost none of it's purpose or charm through my improvisation. Hooray!

There was only one other time I have ever forgotten something I needed for a lesson, and it was the BOOK (this was a couple years ago)! There was no way of improvising my way around that one! Thank goodness that wasn't the case today!

P.S. Check out our book list in the side bar for more info about this week's story: Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming.