Determined

Or maybe just stubborn. Or stupid. Or something.

But it is summer, dammit, and despite the rainy 60 degree weather outside, I am wearing my shorts.

Mrs. O'Brien

Katie will be having her last day of class with her first grade teacher, Mrs. O'Brien, tomorrow. Katie also really wanted to write another song for her, much like the one that we wrote for her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Schaefer, last year.

Life has been exceedingly busy, so although daisy_knotwise had constructed a chorus, a verse, a coda, and a plan for two more verses some time ago, I had not contributed my part of this project. Over the weekend, I put together a tune for the existing verse and chorus, extrapolated an extra line for the existing verse so that it matched up with the tune :), and then sat down with Gretchen and a rhyming dictionary to build the two additional verses that she'd planned, and a fourth verse that I thought we needed.

Of course, then we needed to record it. And there was no time for anything complex if we were going to get it to her this year, so we set up the portable gear in the living room so we could collect all four parts, record, quick mix, and send it down to the studio to be burned to a CD. Katie really wants to sing on the verses, which will be possible once she actually learns the tune. :) And Julie would like to sing too and since she's got at least a 50% chance of being in Mrs. O'Brien's class next year, well...

So we'll re-record this over the summer and send a fresh copy in the fall.

In the meantime, the song arrived today (barely in time) and was happily received by Mrs. O'Brien and her class. The whole class already knows the chorus and can sing along. :)

Meanwhile, here are the lyrics:
( Lyrics inside... )

Annotations:

The pigeon comes from the book by Mo Willems that Katie is very fond of and which pushed her over the edge to active reading.

Every Friday, a Mystery Reader (frequently a parent or other relative) comes to the class late in the afternoon to read them a story. The Reader sends clues to help the class guess who he or she might be.

The students collect tickets for good behavior which they can exchange for special treats, such as going to the other first grade class for a day.

There's a behavior report that comes home with the student each day where the space for the day is colored green for good behavior, yellow for a small problem, and red for a big problem.

And the bucket is where the class collects points that can be exchanged for a class party when the bucket is full.