Friday morning I packed up all my clown stuff into my car and headed off to school. My mom had written me a note that allowed me to leave school for an important meeting regarding my WISE project. Little did the women in the attendance office know that this meeting involved juggling and balloon animals instead of me being in gym class, but what they don't know can't hurt them right?
I changed into my clown costume in the locker room and then drove up the hill to Cayuga Heights Elementary School (I put my shoes on when I got there, it’s sort of hard to drive in clown shoes). I was clowning for my lacrosse coach's special education classroom. Of course as I walked into the school I received the usual laughter and giggles from adults I passed. I'm starting to get used to the reactions people give me when I walk by in a clown suit, at first I never knew what to say because I looked so ridiculous. Now I have learned to completely ignore any laughter and saw something like, "what a beautiful day!" or "can you show me to Heather Murphy's classroom?" I never make any reference to being dressed like a clown, instead I pretend it’s totally normal.
I signed in at the main office and then someone showed me up Murph's classroom. Of course her room was at the farthest end of a very long hallway so I had a lot of attention all the way down. Kids would shyly wave if they were out in the hallway or shout if they saw me from their rooms. When I finally got down to the end, no one was in the classroom! One of the other aids in her room explained the group was doing an activity in another classroom and would be about ten minutes late. Since I was about ten minutes early this gave me twenty minutes to just hangout in an empty kindergarten classroom. Suddenly another teacher popped her head in the door and introduced herself as one of the Pre-K teachers.
She asked if I had some extra time that day to come in and clown for her classroom too! She had seen me walking by on my way to Murph's room and thought I looked awesome. Since I had twenty extra minutes before Murph's class would be back I clomped down to her classroom and went right in. She had 3 and 4 year olds, about 12 of them and much like the Tots ans Teens kids, they immediately swarmed me. They touched my nose and I made sounds for them, and then I started touching their noses' and they would make their own sounds too. I juggled for them and they really liked that, especially when I dropped balls.
The one mistake I made was trying to make them balloon animals. I should have kept up the talking to them and saying silly things because I didn't have enough time to make them all an animal. So the teacher had to suggest they share the animals with the whole class and I could tell they were disappointed and I felt bad about that. However, I did say I would love to come back and see them and their teacher said she would love to have me back. I believe her name was Ms. Hubbard but I can't quite remember.
After I had spent twenty minutes there I headed back down the hallway to Murph's room a few moments before all of the kids came back from their other classrooms. My coach was in a meeting during this time so she wasn't there to introduce me but one of the aids did an excellent drum roll and introduced me as Ms. Heather's special surprise! Apparently all week I had been used as motivation for the kids to be on their best behavior. These children have a lot of behavioral problems that come along with their disabilities and part of what they learn in Heather's classroom is how to behave properly and interact peacefully with other students and teachers. My coach has been telling us stories for years about their crazy behavior so I was a bit nervous that I would rile them up, just like I had with all of the other kids I clown for.
These kids were the most well behaved group I had clowned for thus far, and probably ever. I had nothing to worry about! They were so excited to see me and didn't want to get in trouble and not be allowed in the room so they sat in rows next to their friends with their hands in their laps. There were about 15 kids there, ages 5-8, boys and girls; some were bigger than I am, some about the size of a three year old. Because they weren't crowding around me and jumping all over me I had more time to think about things i could say to them and how to fill the time. This caught me a little off guard at first because I've never really stood up in front of a crowd and entertained them before. I started off by saying hello and then juggling for a bit and then I started asking them questions, like if they wanted to touch my nose like most kids always want to. They were a little bit hesitant but a few finally did and were delighted. Once the first brave ones started talking to me the rest of the kids loosened up a bit.
I told them a lot of stories about clowns. Why our feet were so big, where we got our shoes, what our favorite animals were (giraffes because they have big necks just like our big feet), all the people we like to fit in our cars, what they teach us in clown school...among many other things. I also started making balloon animals for all of them which I think they loved. They weren't really sure what to think about me at first, whether they should laugh or not, but after the balloon animals they looked they were having a great time. Most of these kids have a lot of trouble recognizing humor in social situations. They will laugh if someone else laughs, but because they think they're supposed to not because something is truly funny.
I made a lot of giraffes at first, and then kids started asking for snakes which was awesome because snakes are super easy to make. I made a few poodles, a deer, a lion and one caterpillar. These kids were really patient and asked politely and always said thank you to me. Really I was blown away at how well behaved they were for me. I only had to remake one balloon that Ryan unfolded and he said please and thank you and sorry about popping his first one.
A few of them had speech impediments so it was difficult to understand what they were saying, like their own names for example but I've learned to say more generic things in those situations like "ohh cool what an awesome name!" When I had made everyone a balloon animal, my coach asked me to juggle one more time for the group, which I did, and then they all said thank you to me at once and i waved my way out of the room. I was clowning for them for about half an hour and then they had to go to lunch.
After school that day my coach told me that her kids loved me! They brought their balloon animals around all day and told everyone that they had a clown in their room that day. Except instead of saying clown they say "they had a down in their room" because of their speech problems. I really enjoyed spending time with all of the kids on Friday. I loved seeing how much they love my coach "Miss Heather", they always want to tell her everything that they're doing and sit in her lap. It was a different type of performance for me and I enjoyed having the chance to make up goofy stories about clowns and tell kids what we're all about...making them happy.
Heather, the Pre-K teacher and a kindergarten teacher Margret Philipson (my mom’s best friend) have all asked me to come back and clown for all of their kids one day later this year. I would definitely go back but I would have to figure out how to handle the 50 kids that would all be there at once. My mom proposed making balloon animals in advance and handing them out and then making some but I'd have to think that show through very carefully. Hopefully I'll have enough time to do it!
My biggest regret of this show was that I forgot to bring my camera and I don't have any pictures of the event. I feel really bad about that but if I go back again there is no way I'll forget my camera.
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