Last week, the 8th graders graduated from our school, the kindergartners earned their diplomas, and the students in kindergarten through grade five participated in a ceremony that had them literally “moving up” from their current grades to their next grades. All of these ceremonies were beautiful and enriched with music and tradition from our school.
One item that made me nostalgic was the fact that these 8th graders were PreK Youngers (the 3-year olds class) when I first started teaching at the school. These students studied general music with me from PreK Youngers to grade three. Many of them continued to study private flute or clarinet with me through their fifth through eighth grade years. In addition, out of the 47 8th graders that graduated, 34 of them performed in extra-curricular music activities. This was a wonderful class, one which was musically-talented and one which I am very proud.
One final reflection, when this 8th grade class was in third grade, they created an original CD of compositions which contained very simple melodies utilizing the notes B A and G. One of the students asked me if he could record lyrics to his song. At that point in time, I had never thought about adding this aspect to the lesson because I was not sure how to record a singing voice. Since this 3rd grade boy wanted to sing, I activated the internal computer mic, set the levels so that it would not feedback, and pressed record in Digital Performer. The 3rd grade boy sang his lyrics on pitch and very happily. It was a joy to see and hear. Since then, I have given the option to the students to sing with their compositions and the results have been wonderful.
I hope that your end-of-the year musical activities have gone smoothly and quickly. And if your school has already ended, I hope that you are taking a well-deserved rest!
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