Next week is the Jewish holiday, Tu B’shvat. Tu B’shvat is a Jewish celebration of trees and has really become an environmental nature Earth-lovin’ holiday over the years. I love this holiday, because it is a super fun to teach to children, and the songs are really fun to sing, too.
I am compelled to write about “The Tree Song” by Josh Miller today, because after teaching it all week to preschoolers and preschool staff, I have observed that something really interesting happens when a group sings it.
Imagine this:
A group of 10-20 children are sitting in a circle on a floor , and there are 2-3 teachers sitting among them. ”The Tree Song” has a lot of movement, and so I’ll ask the class to stand up while I teach it to them. I sing the words, “We grow, we grow, we grow, etc…” and we raise our bodies from low to the ground until we reach our hands high up over our heads as if we were “growing.”
As the movement begins to happen, the kids are into it, but it’s really the teaching staff I love to watch. They become silly. I mean…REALLY silly. We freeze into crazy tree shapes as I yell out the word “tree” over and over again, and it’s like all of their inhibitions disappear until we are a room of over-energized nutty performance artists. I watch their laughter and smiles as they glance at each other working off of each other’s energy. It is simply teachers in their element…having fun, and in my opinion, being their best. It is only with the power of music that something that magical can happen. G-d bless those teachers.
So, here’s the video to the song for all of you to witness (and maybe join in on) the silliness. Click HERE to watch and listen and have a very Happy Tu B’shvat.
