- Last week: No school Tuesday or Wednesday due to freezing temperatures
- Week before: No school Friday for teacher work day or Tuesday and Wednesday due to CMEA
- Week before that: No school Monday due to MLK Jr. Day
I've started implementing themed days to my three Brentwood choir classes and the kids are really enjoying the different changes of pace for each day.
Motion Monday begins with all the chairs cleared out to the perimeter of the room and we rarely use them throughout the day. Instead, we are moving around the room to the parts they are singing, using hand motions, or other movement-based ideas that we don't normally do.
Teacher Tuesday happens when the UNC students come in on Tuesdays to teach part of the lessons. Having someone else in front of the room is exciting for the kids, but it also gives me a chance to mobilize more and really listen in on individuals by standing right by them. Tuesday is also sometimes switched or combined with Technique Tuesday where we have an extended warm up to focus on specific techniques for our music even more than normal.
Writer Wednesday focuses on a composer, along with listening from that composer, in the middle of each week. Since we are approaching Valentine's Day on Monday, we've been studying Brahms because he was a composer in the Romantic Era and because of his messed up love life. The kids really are getting into it and were able to spit out information even today even though we just had only talked about him on Wednesday so far. I'm planning on letting them watch the Raisin Brahms commercial next week! :)
Theory Thursday hits the music theory and sight reading hard. They still do a tiny bit of theory each day, but Thursdays are much more intense. We clap and count four rhythm exercises and then sing and sign six solfege exercises every Thursday. So far, they have learned whole, half, quarter, eighth, and dotted rhythms and are sight reading in treble clef from do-fa. We spent the beginning of the year learning both clefs and all their notes, so now they are applying what they learned to solfege.
Free-Seat Friday or Friday Funday alternates, depending on if they have earned it in the week. Today, sixth and seventh graders were gone with their grades so I only had eighth graders. For my first class it was no big deal because they are mostly eighth graders. As a special treat for them, I challenged them with their very first piece of three-part music and they sight-read it and did great! Compared to where they started at the beginning of the year, I am so proud of these guys! My next class I only had eight left so we did the human knot to work on teamwork and then played musical chairs while moving to the music. The last class had only four students, so we did similar things. It was neat being able to bond with the eighth graders a bit because once they are completely won over, they will be able to help convince some of the younger students who will be around longer that the stubbornness won't get them anywhere!
This was a rough week for the family as well. My aunt passed away on Monday after about a year-long fight against cancer. The weekend was super emotional due to the ups and downs there, so not much rest or work was able to be taken care of. Yesterday, I received a text from my dad in the middle of the day saying that my step-grandfather had passed away after a long illness as well. Between those two events, everything was thrown way into perspective and I started realizing more and more how incredibly hard it is to be so far from home and not able to help out at all.
Along those lines, Dad is coming out!!! He's applying for a job in Boulder and has an interview at the end of the month so it will be really good to see him then! It would be so great to have some family close by too, even just to get away for an afternoon to hike in the mountains with him (and Monica).
Tonight, Tom and I got all snazzed up and headed to dinner and the Big Band Boogie Ball, hosted by one of the high schools in town. The event had jazz bands, a waltz orchestra, and a jazz choir from different middle schools, high schools, and even more professional groups around town and was held in the UNC ballroom. There were tons of people there and everyone was having a good time dancing to great live music! Tons of my students were there, including my new private student, and my middle schoolers were so funny when they saw me in a dress...I'm sure I won't hear the end of it on Monday. Yesterday, they were asking if I was going to go and then asked if I was going to wear a dress and heels since they think they have never seen me in either before. I told them they were ridiculous! Even though we were suckered ;) into holding the limbo stick, the night was tons of fun and watching The Office afterward was the perfect ending to a very FULL week.
Now to see if next week can either equal this or (hopefully) improve!!
...I guess this wasn't a quick note after all...
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