Singing at Preschool

For awhile now, I have been excited for when Atticus would start to sing songs. I think watching little kids sing songs is so fun and I like to sing with him. As soon as he entered preschool, he finally started picking up on songs more. I love that the ones he has learned have been church songs as well as fun preschool songs. At Christmas, they had a program at school where each class sang a Christmas song. Once he saw me in the crowd, he was far more interested in coming to me than singing and he looked kind of sad and miserable, not being with me, and didn't do much singing. But, recently, he has come home singing "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and "I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart". Apparently, they have really been practicing songs for the end of year program. Sometimes, throughout the year, when I hear him sing part of a song, I will ask him to sing the entire thing. He will get shy or decide he doesn't want to. But, with these songs, he has gladly sung to me. And without knowing why (until preschool end of school program night), he would sing loud and proud. So, one day, I actually got it all on video. I had to do a little prompting here and there, but I love this little memory. You can go to this link to hear him...

https://youtu.be/vS7NMFhLpzo 

This was him at home of course. But, at school on this past Tuesday night, I got a different glimpse of his singing. When it was his classes turn, he shouted the words to "Jesus Loves the Little Children". And by shout, I really mean more shouting than singing. I was so shocked! Mrs. Meghann told me a couple of weeks ago at his end of year parent teacher conference that he was no longer the shy, reserved little boy he had been in the fall, but instead jumped right into things. In fact, she told me to think in a "teacher's mind" and not a "parent's mind", but that she had to get onto him regularly because he is always pretending to be a dinosaur. She said he wasn't doing anything the other kids weren't (did I tell you he had 14 boys and 4 girls in his class - she had a LOT of boys to work with this year!) and it was very age appropriate. At the time, I as glad he had finally gotten comfortable, although of course I want him to behave.

But, when I saw him shout the song instead of just sing it, I half cringed and half thought it was fine. I am reading a book right now by James Dobson called Bringing Up Boys and he assures us that boys are wired differently than girls and this is normal. Anyways, you can see that video here. I wasn't in a great spot to get video footage but you can see him on the far left. Oh and when he came to sit with us at the end, do you know what he said? He told us one other kid was louder than him. So, I'm thinking that over the past couple of weeks, they have encouraged the kids to sing loudly and he went into competition mode. I don't know. It was an experience!

https://youtu.be/Oh1zzc_OQFc

And here is a comparison picture of his first and last day of school this year. He has changed more than I expected!