For my second teaching day, I decided to sing a classic folk song, "Buffalo Gals". After singing the song through a couple of times, I talked a little bit about buffalo, and how they're native to Utah.
However, a few students corrected me, and let me know that "nope, they're called bison, buffalo don't live here!" Dang it. Those kids are too smart. I always thought that buffalo and bison were interchangeable! I now know to double check my facts before teaching the students false doctrine.
And, I learned something else today, and that thing was that fourth graders do NOT like linking arms with people of the opposite gender! Whoops.
We played a little song game for Buffalo Gals, and the boy/girl thing really just got thrown in my face.
I had the students walk around in a circle with me (ideally to the beat) for the verse part of the song, with one student walking on the inside of the circle in the opposite direction of the students. The idea was that when we got to the chorus ("Oh buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight?"), the student in the middle would link arms with the person they were standing next to, and walk together in the inner circle. Of course, no one was crazy about actually touching a classmate of the opposite gender, hah! You can kind of see that in the video some. When we get to the chorus, the boy in the middle is next to a girl, and the whole class reacts to it. Oh boy.
Eventually, we just compromised and I had the kids just walk side by side. Close enough, right? I'm re-learning a lot what it's like to be nine years old...
It was still really pretty fun, though! One student was especially excited that we were singing this, and he volunteered to teach the class a new verse that he knew from a talent show he was doing. It was kind of fun to venture off the planned path a bit, and include this student's verse in there as well. I think it helped the students really feel more connected to each other, and to the song.
I'm enjoying my time in the classroom quite a bit! Teaching is wonderful, and so are the kids in the class. As always, looking forward to next time!
- Amanda Ritter
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