My Brain is Fried... My Brain is Fried... My Brain is Fried...

Well, hello heat advisory #1 of the 2024 summer session. I have seriously NOT missed you so far, and I wish that you would fade into obscurity sooner than predicted because you make me absolutely miserable in so many ways!

It is hot here. It is hot most places, but I am most concerned with the 50-mile radius that I travel through every work day. There is no air conditioning in my classroom, so I cannot get away from the heat when I am at work. It just makes me tired, cranky, and too exhausted when I get home to do much of anything. I was proud of myself yesterday when I got home, cooked dinner, and stripped the bed upstairs to be washed and dried in skin-friendly manners for my super sensitive guests who will be arriving in (gulp) four days. Today, I will be washing the bedding for the library room so I can move into it and prepare the music room for one of my guests. So, for after school today, I will be making the bed upstairs, finishing the bedding wash/dry cycle for the bed downstairs, and starting the sheet process for the other bed downstairs. I also need to put away the newly cleaned dishes, the rest of the groceries, and start to clean the kitchen. Lots to do here at home, and little to no time to do it - at least, that's how I am perceiving it!

Before I can get to my never-ending list of chores here at home, though, I have four groups to oversee today - and a recertification process for behavior management. We are doing some music education/music appreciation things this week as we sit as still as possible in the hot music therapy environment. We are listening to and talking about Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. 

This is a piece that my brother played over and over again on our little Fisher-Price record player that we kept in his room. The version that we had was narrated by Captain Kangaroo, Bob Keeshan. We had that thing memorized, so it has been a part of my life for a very long time. The version that I am sharing is the Disney cartoon - the music is abbreviated, but that is fine for an introduction. My hour-long sessions are getting the entire thing. The half-hour sessions are seeing an orchestral version first and will follow up with the Disney version during the second half of the week. We are exploring the instrument family posters that I have, and we are limiting our movement because I do not want students to be overheated. 

For now, it is too early to go to work, so I think I will spend the rest of this morning moving things from the office/craft room mess into the library. See you tomorrow? We will see!

Stay cool.