Adventures in Guangzhou!

A month ago I did a lesson analyzing the lyrics of Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Now that would have been perfect. What else could I do? As I was cruising through my iTunes looking for another Halloween-ish song, I came across SteveSongs, the children's music of my good friend Steve Roslonek. Steve is an alumnus of Wesleyan University, the Spirits (my collegiate a cappella group), the Vineyard Sound (my summer a cappella group), and is one helluva talented musician. He has released 5 or 6 full length albums of original children's music, each of which receive regular play on my stereo, despite their target audience of primary schoolers. I still hold that if I had listened to SteveSongs growing up, I would be a *much* cooler person now. If you know his funk version of hickory dickory dock, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Anyhow, Steve wrote a song called "Werewolf" which is about a werewolf (surprise) that used to be a reaaaallly scary monster until he heard rock & roll music for the first time and was inspired to dance. Heh. The song has a scary-sounding introduction which happens to talk about Halloween so I played the whole thing for my kids. They seemed a little unsure of it at first, but once the beat kicked in they got excited. Afterwards we discussed the Celtic roots of the holiday and how it has evolved into modern day trick-or-treating.

After the first two periods of going through these motions, I was getting bored with the lesson. Halloween is so engaging and has so much potential for fun that I felt like I was wasting it. I racked my brain for a way to liven things up and found my answer once again in Steve's music. Having attended my fair share of SteveSongs shows, I know that there is an audience participation that goes along with the Werewolf song. Basically the chorus has three "howls" that correspond to different body motions, followed by a loud howl at the end. This was designed for American kids, ages ~7-12 but I figured I'd give it a shot. 3rd graders in America, 11th graders in China--pretty much the same thing, right??

So I went ahead and taught the Werewolf dance! Admittedly, they were a little hesitant to get up out of their seats. They were even more self conscious of howling out loud, but I pressed them to give it their best. Luckily, there was one student who has no conception of embarrassment and went all out howling. He unabashedly did the growling and claw movement too! I think that broke the ice enough and finally I got a chunk of the class to howl away. Thinking back now, I'm kicking myself that I didn't have my camera--it was hilarious.

Tonight I will be attending the "That's GZ" party, a Halloween bash for expats in the city. As I'm known to do, I waited until the very last minute to put together a costume. At this time, I'm debating between wearing my HSFZ football uniform and going with the old standby--a toga. Once again, I must tip my cap to Mr. Hayes, my high school latin teacher. Not only do I still remember the correct way to pronounce veni, vidi, vici, but I also remember how to make a pretty snazzy looking toga with only a basic bed sheet and a safety pin. You can never go wrong!