Clean and Green

Yesterday, four boys from my class, and I, took home a trophy. Yes, we bagged the district-wide first place award in the Reading Rodeo held at Thurgood Marshall School, one of the schools in our district.

We won first place in Dramatic Reading, Kindergarten division. The title of our piece is Clean and Green. We started practicing mid of April, barely a month before the competition, and that's a bit too late. I said late because I will be dealing with five year-olds, they can do so well in sports and games but memorizing a long piece is a difficult ordeal for them, let alone choral recitation –this means keeping pace with each other -not going too slow, not going ahead! This is my first time to train five year olds in a choral recitation. I’ve done plays before in the same contest (Reading Rodeo), but I’ve never done choral recitation.

Keegan Jenkins, Trevion Johnson, Jeremi Orange, Alexander Peristeris and Ms Bernal

To say busy was an understatement, I was barely on my feet after returning from a major surgery. When I returned to work after only a month’s leave (my oncologists said, it should at least be six to eight weeks) there were so many paper woks to attend to, deadlines here and there, not to mention lessons (for the students) to catch up on. I almost said no to Reading Rodeo, but I loath to pass up the opportunity of letting (even just four of) my students join the contest. To experience the camaraderie, the challenge, the exposure, the lessons this experience will instill in them… the wonderful memory… and most of all, the FUN!

I chose the theme Clean and Green because my class has been supporting and promoting the go green movement of our school, the piece is just one of the enrichment activities. I authored our own piece because I can’t find one that has short snappy lines that would be easy for little kids to pronounce and memorize.

I bought four black shirts and painted it with nature theme. Sea –stop water pollution/conserve water. Clouds –clean air (can’t find any easier design for this)

Sun –awareness of the need to protect our ozone layer. Tree –save the trees- recycle

The morning of the event, my boys were so excited. NOT one out of these four boys are school bus-riders, so when we boarded the bus, they were SOOOO excited! They were so animated, chatted endlessly –as if everything is new to them, as if they’ve just seen the world for the first time (teehee). They were pointing at everything in the neighborhood that is so familiar to them, friend’s house… their house… a familiar store. Just listening to their animated chatter made me realize, thank God I did not back out of this contest! “Just this” animated chatter brought about by the school bus experience is more than enough for me to go through the rigorous days of training them! Hahaha!

With pride, allow me this space to talk about MY boys!

Trevion Johnson (sky/clouds) First day in Kindergarten, he can’t write his name and won’t cooperate when it’s writing time. Trey can now read any book, re-tell stories and write paragraphs about it.

Keegan Jenkins (sea) On his first day in kindergarten, he cried so much! Cried to exhaustion. Cried for a whole week (mornings only) Hehe… He can't even write his name. Now, he can read anything under the sun and can even write a paragraph about it.

Jeremi Orange (sun) When he was new in kindergarten, he was too shy, won’t talk loud and would stammer a lot. Now, would talk about any topic being discussed and even bagged first place in a choral recitation -how's that for stammering!

Alexander Peristeris (tree) When he was new in Kinder, he had a soft voice and not a likely candidate for a choral recitation, but now, Alex can recite any poem with confidence and sing our classroom songs with a firm voice.

When the committee announced the winner, the look on my kids's faces made all my efforts well worth my while! Given the chance, I would gladly go through the rigorous training days -even if its just for the opportunity to give a child a positive self-concept!

Walking down the “red line” to receive their trophy. This is their closest experience of a “red carpet” (teehee)

Now, Clean and Green is no longer just a coloring page that these kids color, it is an experience that they and I will carry for the rest of our lives.









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