A New Approach to Children's Choir

Leslie and I are constantly looking for new ways to approach teaching the children's choir. Two weeks ago, on the way to work, the best idea ever hit me. Why aren't we splitting these kids up? Leslie's in charge of the drama part of our musical, and I'm handling music and choreography. We have 45 minutes together. We can pray and go over our verse in the first five minutes, go off to our groups, and then switch groups after twenty minutes.

In theory, it sounds like a great idea. In reality, it worked out even better than we planned.

When I got to church, I had the girls that ride with me clear the chairs out in the choir room, so that when we came back from dinner, all the students could sit on the floor. We had a student who I had to call down about three times before we even prayed, so I took him downstairs to his mother. When I came back up, Leslie and I had a serious discussion with the rest of the students about actions and consequences. The disrupter gets three chances: the first is a verbal warning, the second is a time-out, and the third is removal from the classroom. I'm hoping this trend continues, because this group listened better than they ever have before.

Leslie took the Blue Team to rehearse scenes for twenty-five minutes while I took the others and we rehearsed choreography. I just...it was just splendid. Then, Leslie and the Blue Team came back, and she traded them off for the Red Team, whereas I had the new group rehearse a separate set of songs. Then we came together again for announcements and dismissal.

Sure, we ran over about fifteen minutes, but given that this was the inaugural run, I thought it went extremely well, and now I have more confidence than ever about the spring musical.

Toodles!