Sometimes You Just Need Puppies

I was checking out Facebook, as one often does, and I came across this posting in the “I’m A Choir Director” group. It was posted by Katie Blasing, who I know through Camp A Cappella (campacappella.com). Anyway, in the spirit of Choir Bites being... well... little, bite-sized nuggets for choir directors, and in the spirit that not everything has to be a life-changing treatise to be good, I asked Katie if I could use her post for a Choir Bite. She said yes, so here it is:

“I discovered the way to make kids smile while singing... just play videos of puppies playing while they’re singing their rep. Half of my eighth-grade students were mysteriously sad and nearly in tears when they came in so I tried this today. How you going to pout when there is a cute puppy video playing, am I right?”

Hats off to Katie for having the quick mind to try such a thing on the fly. This is really thinking outside the box, folks! KUDOS, Katie Blasing!

For those of you who have that inner voice saying, “but this could become a disaster in my room,” I would encourage you to remember that this is, after all, just singing. Relationships mean more than anything else, and even if it fails, you can explain to the class that even teachers try things that fail, and that’s ok.

Choir Bites Interactive Slides can enhance online/hybrid lesson plans or be used as supplemental assignments. Your singers’ awareness will rise as they engage with these simple, “sticky” concepts! Click here to learn more! 

If you STILL can’t bring yourself to try puppy videos when you need them, consider this video by Australian Voices, called “9 Cutest Things that Ever Happened.” 

https://youtu.be/Q0sbmrwLzBo

It is FULL of cuteness, but has a professional choir singing very well to boot. As such, this video can lift spirits in more of a defined, traditional / edu-tainment role than just puppies frolicking in the background. But I still like puppies. Puppies FTW :)