Fête de la Musique

I wasn't sure how to share about last night. Maybe the best way would be to quote Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother. "Challenge-Accepted!"
Fête de la Musique was the biggest evening event The French School has ever had! Over 400 people came and each of the 11 classes performed their songs admirably. I had been dreaming/planning/stressing about it for four months and thanks be to God it was a success!
I tried to plan for some things to go awry and having no air conditioning in the gym was probably the biggest challenge. But everyone was gracious and we made it through. I cut a couple of the Orff-Schulwerk demonstrations to make the total performance time a little shorter due to the heat.
I couldn't have done it without the wonderful parent committee to help me plan, fold programs, make beautiful posters, organize food and setup! One family even donated a huge projector screen for the picture slideshow!
Another blessing was that several of my coworkers stepped up at the last minute to help hang decorations and transport the instruments. One of the assistants, Rémi, even accompanied the 2nd and 3rd grade classes on his guitar.
The highlight of the concert was the last song called Tender Care by Tim Weigand. I translated it into French and the children wrote letters of appreciation for their parents. 5 of the students read their letters aloud at the end of the song. One of the 1st grade boys wrote: Dear Mommy, I love it when you pick me up. I was not the only one with shining eyes!
Bringing our school closer together through music-this is one of the reasons why I do what I do!
 

Symphony in Your School

What a week! Monday was a big day for the 2nd grade classes. I need to give a short back story to explain first. The St. Louis Symphony has an education outreach program called Symphony in Your School. I applied to be a part of it last year but they were already full. This year we got in! The wonderful director Dacy gave the introductory visit right before Spring Break. It did not go well. She had to dismiss 14 students (the usual offenders) and it was very embarrassing for me. I was so frustrated I cried myself to sleep that night. But with the input of the 2nd grade classroom teachers and Mme Kate (the librarian) we came up with a good action plan. The students who had to leave last time had one strike. If they didn't get their acts together they couldn't come back for the other 3 presentations. We explained everything really clearly to the students and from the way they acted on Monday message received!
A violinist and a cellist came and they were amazing with the children. They even had a book called Mole makes music and played along with the story. I could say more put I think this picture tells the story better than any words I could write. This is one of the reasons why I do what I do.

"Mallet Madness" or Operation Glockenspiel Part II

Bonjour! I realize that it has been 4 months since my last post. My apologies! But in my defense, after la Fête d'hiver (Winter concert) not much happened. I was ousted from my classroom for 5 weeks while the school used it for computerized standardized testing. I now have a lot of respect for "cart music teachers" who travel to the classrooms and teach. It was not ideal. Since the majority of our classrooms only have partitions or thin walls, I couldn't use my instruments. Instead, I taught more music appreciation using Walt Disney's classic Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. I also finished up teaching the instrument families of brass and woodwinds.
Thankfully, I'm back in the music room and for the past 4 weeks I've been joyfully teaching the students (even the kindergarteners!) the basics of playing Orff-Schulwerk barred instruments. A retired music teacher from my AOSA chapter, Sue, came to help me teach the first week. She was wonderful and I learned so much from observing her teach. Though Sue taught in English, I was able to translate a couple of her songs as well as the procedures and methods. It was very inspiring to be with her as she taught for 31 years! As I struggle sometimes with frustrations and feeling I can't make it even one more year, I picked her brain about how she taught that long! Sue said that the Orff method is very energizing and that every year she threw out her lessons and started anew!
All this to say I  feel like I'm becoming a legit music teacher this semester. I've taken the 2nd and 3rd graders on a field trip to the St. Louis Symphony (funded by DonorsChoose.org :-) And I am teaching the students to play barred instruments! I can only pray that the clumsy, inattentive children won't trip and fall on the $700 bass xylophone. I have a feeling that our $250 loan fee for insurance and repairs will definitely be put to use!
So maybe more has happened in the last couple months than I realized. I must conclude with this anecdote from a procedure I learned from Sue: to get the children to stop playing (after the cut off) you have them put their mallets on their shoulders, in an X or on their heads! They loved it!
Almost every class burst out laughing the first time I demonstrated "Battonets sur la tête!"
"Madame Michelle you look like un papillon!" (butterfly)
100% of the students in a class engaged and having fun in music. This is one of the reasons why I do what I do.