The 2017-2018 school year marked my 16th year of teaching!
I worked 4 days a week teaching early childhood music. This included teaching 2 family classes, 12 preschool classes and 8 Kindergarten classes, on a total of 7 campuses. But my teaching didn’t end there. I also subbed on Mondays as often as I could in the public school district and started teaching piano lessons again from my home. I continued volunteering as Primary President of our children’s ministry at church and as Board Member at the Hormel Historic Home. Collectively, I worked with over 430 children on a regular basis this year. Yes, my schedule was crazy! Yes, it was very fun! Yes, it was one of my most challenging teaching years to date.
There are some highlights I want to remember…
Highlight #1 — Wonderful times at Woodson! This campus is hands-down the best place I have ever taught at. The faculty have created an amazing culture here. Their focus is on the students and what is best for their learning and growth. The teachers are forward thinking, welcoming of new ideas, actively learning and improving their teaching strategies, and work in extremely collaborative ways. They are truly team players. Of course the students are amazing, too! This was my third year working at this campus.
Highlight #2– Field Trips at the Hormel Historic Home
This is something that I had been hoping to do with the History for Half Pints team for some time. So when we got grant money and enough volunteer helpers to actually make it happen, I was thrilled!! I took the tour ideas that I created for SPAMKids Fest and adapted them to fit within a school field trip set-up. The Shaping History Tour became a Shaping History Field Trip for Kindergarten. The Teddy Bear Tour became a Day in the Life Field Trip for first graders.
I had butterflies in my stomach when the first group came. They were from Woodson Kindergarten, and as they came through the door, I was SOO excited to see that it was MY SON’s class!! So now Tanner and I can say that we were both involved in bringing the first group of kindergarten students to the HHH for the Shaping History field trip. In fact, this is the picture that was put in the Austin Daily Herald explaining the awesome programming:
The person in the lab coat with the funny hat is me, aka Shape Expert Mrs. Zavoral. I take the children on a fun adventure discovering shapes and patterns in the furniture, decorations, and architecture of the home.
After the tour, the children get to learn about the importance of sewing and quilting at the HHH, and how shapes are used in quilting. The kids got to do their own sewing project with burlap. Tanner ended up LOVING this activity. He brought it home to finish, and was so proud of his work.
Next, the children engaged in a scavenger hunt. Working in pairs, they had to find various shapes and patterns that they learned about in the tour. They really enjoyed being able to explore independently to see what they could find.
Finally, we did Shape Dancing, which I think is my favorite part of this field trip. I led the groups in discovering how to move their bodies to make high, low and medium shapes. The kids responded really well to it, and the boys especially loved the challenge to move their bodies!
We brought in five Kindergarten classes and the teachers loved it so much that they decided they want to bring all 16 groups of Kindergarteners next year!! We also had several first grade groups from Banfield elementary come for the Day in the Life field trip, which included collecting Jay Hormel’s teddy bears from around the home and learning how to make their own fresh butter. That school also requested to come back this upcoming school year! In August, I helped launch the Secret Garden field trip for older students. A group of 6th graders came and we discovered the gardens throughout the home’s exterior and interior. Students also got to use watercoloring paints to create their own garden art. Doing field trips has been extremely invigorating for me. It is awesome to work with the HHH team and to create something completely new for the community to experience.
Highlight #3– MacPhail Showcase Concert
All the children that have MacPhail music at preschool and kindergarten in our town were invited to perform together at a showcase concert mid-April. That meant that Tanner and Dallin got to be on stage together! And I got to be the teacher that led the students in their performance. It was really fun for all three of us to be together on the big high school stage!! The boys ended up standing front and center close to me. Dallin is wearing the red and blue “jeremy jacket,” and Tanner is wearing a dark blue jacket right next to him. They look so little up there!!
Highlight #4–Enjoying Piano Lessons
In the past, I’ve been reluctant to teach piano because the majority of my teaching experience is with large-group instruction, and that is where I have felt most comfortable. But since I’ve had success teaching privately in the past, and people in town wanted lessons, I started offering them again this year from my home. I ended up loving everything about it, and my only regret is not doing it sooner!
My approach to piano instruction is very different from the way I was taught piano. My goal is to take everything that research tells us about how young children and their brains learn and apply it to the piano setting. Some of the renegade things that I do in my lessons include daily improvisation, composition and movement. I let my students guide the learning rather than stick to the limitations of an instruction book. I actually make customized music books for my students based on their interests, strengths, and learning styles. It’s been a fun adventure, and this upcoming year I have already gained a few more students. Tanner and Dallin let me teach them from time to time, too, so it’s been a great experience in many ways!
Highlight #5–Growing at Church
It has been a joy to work with the primary children at church. I serve as both the president of the organization and as the children’s music leader. My two counselors in the presidency have been so supportive and amazing to work with! Looking back on how this job paved out during the school year, I remember the primary program we put on in Nov, the church Christmas party that we hosted in Dec, the new ideas we were able to implement in Jan, the Easter party we hosted in March, the scripture guests we had in April, the class reorganzations that we made in June, and most recently the Scripture camp we hosted in Aug. We have been busy!
Tanner and Dallin get to take part in everything that I do with the primary. Sometimes they are extra goofy/difficult when I teach, and it makes me want to pull my hair out! And sometimes they are super sweet and help me know what kinds of activities they think everyone will enjoy in sharing time. The boys are really good about all the meetings I attend. Sometimes Jeremy and I have to attend the same meetings, since he serves as a counselor to the bishop. One of these meetings ocurrs every other week, early on Sunday mornings. The boys roll out of bed and bring their backpacks to church. During our meeting, they take care of themselves in the next room. They eat their packed breakfast, get themselves dressed and stay entertained with quiet acitvities until our meeting is over. (ok, they do interrupt the meeting about every 3rd time we meet, but I’m not complaining!) They actually look forward to this time and ask if we get to have an “early morning meeting Sunday”! This is shocking to Jeremy and me, but I think it is just something the Lord has made possible so that we can serve where we are needed.
Serving in this capactiy at church has been a great opportunity to exersize my patience and to wait on the Lord’s timing. I’ve been able to learn how to rely on personal revelation to know how to move forward with various issues. One thing I have been inspired to do is give more responsibility to the older children and to find ways to minister to each child individually. Acting on those inspirations has worked miracles. It is awesome to see the children growing in their faith in so many ways. Definitely a major highlight of my teaching this year.
Highlight #6–Learning My Limitations
During the year, I learned a lot about myself and what kinds of things truly “fill my bucket,” as they say at Woodson. I started the year out with lots of energy and optimism. But that energy didn’t stick around very long. Teaching jobs I could do before were taking so much energy of mind and body. It is so frustrating being tired and dizzy from just marching in place or taking a bin of instruments out of my car to the classroom. You might remember a post around my birthday where I decided to do more self care. As a result from that, I was finally diagnosed with functional hypothyroidism and adrenal dysfunction in November. It was nice to get answers, but not fun to realize my gas tank is emptier than I realized. Winter was especially hard for our family; sickness and vacations made my work schedules a huge mess. My brain was toast. Fried! I decided to drop a few classes in the Spring, as it was getting too hard to do everything. Facing the reality of the situation, I spent Feb to May trying to figure out what changes need to take place in my life so that it can be easier to get my “bucket” filled.
Finally one day I got an idea that seemed to solve a lot of the challenges I was facing. It was not my own idea, but when God told it to me, I felt peaceful about it right away, even though it’s not what I wanted to do. The idea was to substitute teach fulltime with the school district this upcoming year instead of teaching music at the preschools and Kindergarten. (I will keep doing the family music classes, private piano, events at the hormel home and my gig with primary at church.) I am going to miss teaching music with the partnerships I was involved in, especially with Woodson! It was really hard to hold back the tears when I said goodbye to each of my classes this past June. I balled like a baby in my car on the last day of school.
However, since making this decision, I have continued to have a lot of peace. It’s wierd to have peace about something that is not my first, second or even third choice of how to handle something. The good thing is that I’ve always enjoyed my subbing jobs, so I’m excited to do it more often this year. I can sub in any kind of classroom setting in any grade because of the kind of teaching license I have. Subbing will give me freedom to get my health under control and to focus my energy in areas that are most important to me.
I am so grateful for the amazing opportunities I had to work with children this past school year. One of my favorite parts of the year was that I got to be both Tanner and Dallin’s regular music teacher.
My music students in Dallin’s Class
My music students Tanner’s Class
