Top Ten Things To Do When Boredom Sets In...

Bored with summer yet? Here's Ms. Philipsen's Top Ten Things To Do When Boredom Sets In...

10. Clean out your sock drawer. Make sock puppets out of the socks that are missing their mates. Put on a puppet show for your neighborhood.

9. Memorize scales, arpeggios, and rudiments. This will not only keep you busy for an afternoon, but if you play them for Ms. P. you'll get a sweet reward.

8. Chase squirrels. Don't forget to look both ways before you cross the street, and remember, climbing utility poles isn't such a good idea for us humans.

7. Practice for your band lesson. Maybe practice outside or in the bathroom or somewhere weird...

6. Come up with your own top ten list. If it's good and school appropriate, post it as a comment to this post and share it with the rest of the band! Be creative with topics. (Please try to keep them positive!) Oh, and while you're working online, take the online poll that's with this blog...there will be a new one each week...

5. Practice long tones. How long can you hold a note? Can you hold every note just as long? Can you make your tone sound better? Just be careful not to pass out!

4. Make a picnic lunch and take your teddy bear out for a nice stroll and picnic. Don't forget the sunblock and bug spray.

3. Play through some of your favorite lesson lines from lessons past. Do you sound better playing them now than you did when you first worked on that lesson? What are your favorite lines?

2. Check out www.freerice.com. It's a great web site that costs you nothing, but by answering vocabulary questions you are donating rice to poor countries through the site's sponsors. Don't worry about your vocab level, they have easy words as well as much harder words and the computer will help find the level that you should work at. Check it out and make a difference!

1. Did I mention PRACTICE?? As a band director, I would be in trouble if this wasn't in my #1 boredom buster slot...