Mrs. G & Mrs. I, our extraordinary music teachers, have been teaching the kids (grades K-12th) rounds. Rounds teach the kids harmony, rhythm and cooperation. In addition, they wanted to give families a repertoire to sing together, as well as have songs for family camp campfires. I love it. My family sings. We all love to sing; loudly, softly, goofily (my husband, bless his soul, likes to woo me with bad 70's songs. Oy vey!). Sometimes we sing poorly, and often we ad lib (mainly me. It's a sad fact of life and on going joke that I never sing the correct words to any song. Ever. I like to think of myself as, if inaccurate, at least a joyful noisemaker). Anyway this week, while we were hauling gravel and dirt, Feche started singing "Hey, Ho." Hauling rocks and dirt is not really the most delightful activity in the world and it's easy to get grumpy and complain and whine and beg and plead and implore and have to go to the bathroom and get lost on the way back. Not that this would happen in our family of joyful, diligent workers. I'm just saying it could happen in a family much more normal than ours. So, Feche is singing. Pretty soon the kids are singing it as a round, hauling all the while. It sure made the job much more fun and kept 
Then, Friday, I peeked in on Mrs. J & Mrs. S's 2nd and 3rd class to take pictures of their unit study project (geography!) Both teachers were very busy hot gluing Mr. Australia (Kangaroos) - 6 parts per roo x 15 kids while the kids were busy cutting and/or using the bodies of their un-glued roos as mega-phones. As a distraction, and noise quieter I divided the kids into parts and started them on "Hey Ho" as well as the 2nd round we're learning, "The Orchestra" (for a funny rendition of it, go to the Xmas scene on "You've Got Mail"). The kids quickly organized themselves, vied for being a song leader and jumped in with enthusiasm to sing. Sneaky music assistant that I am, I snuck in an extra practice on the kids and they didn't even know it! And aren't the kangaroos the kids made incredible? They are hats = )! Boys and girls alike were joyfully donning their new toppers! I've heard that Latin, Math and Music are the universal languages. Math and Latin I'm not so sure of, but Music- yes!
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