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.