December is a busy month. As a music teacher, it's even busier with musical shows. I had several of my students involved in multiple performances...and they all made me so proud and remind me why I love my job so much.
At the beginning of December, I volunteered to have my 4th grade students sing the national anthem at a high school boys' basketball game. I'd never done this before, and it was quite the process. I had to communicate and work with several people on the high school level to get it all coordinated. I teach three 4th grade classes, totalling over 60 students. It was a voluntary assignment, and I needed signed parent slips from each of them saying whether or night they would be coming. After figuring out who would be joining us, we spent an hour one afternoon walking over to the high school and practicing during school. The night of the performance, I had to rearrange and line-up the students and supervise them until it was time for them to sing. And all of that work was worth it. It was an amazing sight to see 40 kids be patriotic and sing the Star-Spangled Banner. I was so proud of them! I received several compliments from audience members who also loved their performance.
The Kindergarten Christmas program was the week before Christmas break. I created this year's program based on the book "Snowman at Christmas". I teach 3 classes of Kindergarten students, totalling over 60 kids, and they helped me decorate the stage by cutting out their own snowflakes. Mrs. Foote, one of the Kindergarten teachers, is also an artist. She created a snowy mountain backrop for a cultural performance at the 2000 SLC winter olympics, and I asked her if we could borrow that to put on the stage, which she agreed to do. It made the stage look awesome for their show! I purchased a large inflatable snowman to complete the decorations, since the book was all about snowmen. This is my classroom & the decorated stage:
I asked the Superintendent to come and narrate the book, and during different parts of the book, we paused the story and sang a song relating to what was happening. We had been learning and practicing songs for this show since October. We sang 10 songs in all: "Hello Friends", "Falling Snow", "The Snowman", "Frosty the Snowman", "Santa Clause is Coming to Town", "Jingle Bells", "Deck the Halls", "Oh Christmas Tree", "Away in a Manger", and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". The kids walked onto the stage while a funny variation of the song "Once there was a Snowman" was playing. There were two students who got to jingle bells during the song "Jingle Bells", and for the song "Deck the Halls" one of my 5th grade students accompanied us on a fiddle. It was a fun program and the kids did so well! They performed the show twice--once for the studentbody as their dress rehearsal, and once for their parents. I was so happy with their performances! They did a great job!
I enjoyed having my son in the production as well! He was standing on the opposite side of the stage from where I was sitting, so I didn't see him a lot during the show. Thankfully, Josh videotaped it for me, and I was able to see Kanyon participating in the entire program, and it made my heart happy!
The final music program that my students were involved in was the High School's Christmas Concert. My students have never before combined with the middle school and high school at a concert. It was exciting and the 5th graders were so anxious for it! All the 48 5th grade students except 2 participated. Here they are getting set up in the high school gym (Salmon doesn't have an auditorium):
I'd been teaching them to play the recorder since October. They played 3 songs on their recorders together at the concert. The first song was "Shoheen Sho", a Welsh lullaby that I had them play with a harp accompaniment on CD in the background. It was beautiful! The next two songs were Christmas tunes: "Jingle Bells" and "Jolly Old St. Nick".
After they were done playing their recorders, we also sang one song for the audience. The students all set their recorders down, stood up, walked by me, each collecting a wrist bell, and took their places on the 3-tier risers. They sang the song "Jingle Bell Rock", and they used the wrist bells rhythmically during parts of the song when they weren't singing. There were also two air guitar soloists, who were a big hit. The crowd loved this song, and so did the 5th graders! I tried to upload the video of it, but it wouldn't work. This 5-second clip is the beginning, when the students had all just gotten on the risers and we were waiting for Mr. Anderson (my supervisor & the high school/middle school music teacher) to turn on the microphones (I had students introduce each song, so there's one girl standing by the mic):
The 5th graders did an awesome job, and I was swelling with emotion to see them put their hearts into the performance after all the work we'd done! It's moments like these that make me so happy to be an elementary music teacher! The Kindergarten program & 5th grade show were on consecutive days, and it was stressful trying to accomodate the scheduling! So, I was also very glad when the performances were done and I could relax over Christmas Break!
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