Boogie Round & Round, Up & Down

Like most of us Truckee kids who went to school in "the shire," I have fond memories of banana slugs. Whaaaaa?, you must be saying. Let me elaborate:

At Glenshire Elementary, the 5th graders got to take a trip to Pigeon Point, CA to see the lighthouse, learn about the sea, and go to the redwoods. Of course, there's a lovable, slimy little creature in those redwoods called the banana slug. The tradition on this field trip was to kiss a banana slug -- it was like a rite of passage saying that we could move on to middle school! The banana slug was also the symbol that you made with your hands in order to get the class quiet -- connect your ring & middle fingers to your thumb and point your index finger and pinkie up like antennae. Viola! I just made you make a banana slug! Now, shhhh!

Anyway, I was in a 4th/5th combination class in 4th grade, so I had two whole years of this obsession! But the highlight of these two years was when the ever-so-famous Banana Slug String Band came to perform at my school! How sweet is that?! One of the BSSB's biggest hits was the "Water Cycle Boogie," so it is only natural that I whip this out for my little Spanish kiddos when the Science unit got to a whole page about the water cycle! So watch out -- you may see some kids in the Madrid ghetto and nearby shanty towns doing this dance and singing this song!