Dress Rehearsal and Spring Sing, 20130603-20130604

June 3rd was a Monday, but I wanted to have our classes have a dress rehearsal for the Spring Sing, and so we had music class moved to the day before the Sing. We also combined both classes of 2nd graders, since they'd be singing together during the following evening.
Our music class typically starts right after lunch recess, and so the students ended up coming back to the classrooms, only to be led back to the open grounds where the amphitheater was located. This led to a lot of chatty children, and while I was planning on having the children sing as they walked, it was more important that they did not disturb the other classes as they walked by, and so our travel was mostly quiet.
It took about 3 minutes to walk over, followed by nearly another 5 minutes just to get all of the children set up. The stage area did have risers, but they were too small to accommodate all of the kids (even with a row of shorter children in front of the risers), and so we had to let some kids trickle over the sides on stage ground.
We practiced first Oh My Goodness, focusing more on the transitions from girls to boys, and the bookends of the song. We then practiced Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers with some of the tongue twisters printed. However, I didn't print out a slide that said "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers" which appears in the song many times, and I realized quickly that when the students were watching the printed slides go by, they halted singing when it was time to sing "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers", as there was no slide for that. We had a hard time stop for the dress rehearsal, and so we really only got to go through this song once.
The following day was the spring sing, and while we had a very chaotic 10-15 minutes to practice (during which time we were only able to go through each song once), the children did very well in their performance. Children always seem to pay attention more and sing with more control than they ever do in the classroom or in the dress rehearsal, and I'm glad that was true this time. The students didn't always know the lyrics well enough to sing the songs at a constant volume (less confidence means less sound), but they at least were able to complete both songs (which, in retrospect, were pretty difficult songs for 2nd graders) successfully, while having a lot of fun on the new stage.