Miles
Sheila helps me pass out instruments to the kids. Half of them complain about what they get, but all of them use them anyway, until the room is echoing with the most disastrous sound I’ve ever heard.
For someone who gets headaches easily, maybe I should have gone the therapy route.
“I love music,” I say sarcastically.
Sheila laughs.
“All right, all right,” Sheila says, doing a motion with her hands to tell the kids to quiet down. “We’re going to play a game with our instruments.”
“What is this?” Dante asks, giving his instrument a shake.
“A tambourine,” Sheila answers.
“That’s what I have, too!” Annalee shouts.
“No, that’s a maraca,” I say.
“But it makes the same sound. See!” She shakes the maraca hard, and Dante joins in with his tambourine. The other kids join immediately, and it’s chaos once again.
“Come on, class,” Sheila says loud enough they can hear her over the—for lack of a better word—music. “We need to use calm hands so we can start the game.”
It takes a moment, but the kids settle, and Sheila explains the game as I grab the snare drum from the shelf and sit cross-legged on the floor facing the kids.
The game will help them learn addition. She’s going to give easy problems, and the kids use their instrument the amount of times equal to the answer.
I play along but purposely give the wrong answer a few times, to see if the kids catch on. Correcting me helps them learn, too.
We do this for about twenty minutes, which is the limit for kindergartener’s attention spans and my patience with the cacophony echoing through the room. The kids settle back at their desks, and I pass out coloring papers while Sheila goes through the stack of books we have so she can read while they take some time to relax and color.
The kids have their coloring papers and crayons, so I sit at my desk and look over my lesson plan while Sheila reads them a book about pigs eating pancakes.
I keep my phone in the drawer during school hours, but while it’s quiet, I check it quickly to see if Audrey needs anything before I get home.
There isn’t a text from her, but there is one from JJ from almost thirty minutes ago. I open it immediately, keeping the phone in the drawer so I don’t get caught with it out.
JJ:
Doing anything after work?
I type back with one finger.
Me:
Nothing.
JJ:
Do you have to watch Noah?
Me:
Audrey isn’t working.
The little bubbles bounce as I wait for him to respond. The kids laugh, and I look up at them. Some have their attention on Sheila while others are working on their coloring papers. But everyone is behaving. It’s important to take breaks to get them to calm down so they don’t get overstimulated.
JJ:
