The Sound of Elephants Running

Yesterday was a fun time with a group of young adults in their last week of school. Summertime gets everyone giddy in anticipation for vacations and down time.  We sang quite a few songs that were of a summer theme like, "Take me out to the Ballgame," "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain,", "You Are My Sunshine."  Songs we never seem to get tired of.

Then I passed out percussion instruments and I had my doumbek drum and we did some jamming to rhythms for awhile. First I led and then everyone got a chance to lead as the main drum got passed around. We played a game of "call and response" and at one point I played a rhythm and asked the kids what did they think I was mimicking? I told them it related to an animal. One got it--I was doing a horse galloping and then we all did horses galloping. After that, I asked what other sound we could try to get on the drum and one boy said, "elephants?" So, we did elephants running! Funny too because as we played this for awhile, I could actually see elephants running in my mind's eye.

It goes that way with this group. We flow from one idea to another and use our imagination. It is a joy to play with them and I will miss them this summer!