Deja Vu

Earlier this week I was asked to field a mass e-mail request for 300-400 coffee cans for an art project for July 4th. The former preschool teacher in me giggled. Preschool teachers hoard these items over months, knowing that they have a special craft rolling around some week for which they will need these sacred objects. Preschool teachers, in fact, hoard everything. Their garages are full of recyclables that "surely could be used for something someday". Their brains are in imaginative overdrive... always. So the idea of coming up with 300-400 coffee cans in two weeks' time I found, uh, funny.
Now, I confess that as a music teacher, I had a special interest in Folgers plastic coffee containers. Bright red, came in several different sizes so that you could store them inside of each other, they stacked well, and they made great drums. Better in some ways than the ones you ordered from school music instrument sites - those drums that caved in the minute one overly energetic, or perhaps, overly devious 4-year-old decided that he wanted to see exactly how loudly it would play.
Ah, fond memories. Giggle, giggle.
Actually, yes they are fond, and though I have given away or thrown out most of my hoarded materials at this point, I do still have all of my lesson plans, the outlines to my workshops, and the notes on child development and musical development so someday I will share bits of that here and label it boldly so that if it doesn't interest you, you can just skip along and read something else. Fair enough? There may be some struggling teachers out there wishing for ways to integrate required music elements into their NAEYC accreditation wish lists. Education is about passing along the knowledge wherever you are.