On 6/5, our school had an open house that originally served two purposes: it gave incoming parents (for next year) a chance to talk to current parents, and it allowed current students to show their parents what had been covered in the classroom. This year, we also added a music show (a spring sing, as I liked to call it) featuring students from K, 1st and 3rd grades, all led by Music for Minors docents. While this blog typically contains information about what I've taught during class, it also serves as a record for myself to know what worked and what didn't, and since this was the first time that I had organized a spring sing (and the first time that the school had such an event), I thought I'd chat a little bit about it.
We started planning the spring sing about 4 weeks before the Open House, which arguably was probably not quite enough time. The previous month had an event called International Day which seemed to consume a lot of energy from many parents, including most MfM docents at the school, and so it was hard to plan much before Internaltional Day had passed. Originally, I had asked the docents if they were up for performing, and all but the 2nd grade docents showed interest.
I had given the option to have grades perform either together or separate, and since the 1st grade docents tag-team, it seemed natural to them to have the 1st graders all perform together. Similarly, the Kindergarteners were split between the two docents (who didn't mix or split classes together), and so we had planned two K performances, a 1st grade performance, and a 3rd grade performance.
One thing that we didn't really have nailed down firmly was the start time, and since we only really have one day per week to get fliers to the students' parents, we had to make fliers printed out about two weeks in advance. Shortly after printing them and distributing them, we were told to move our start time by a half hour to give the incoming parents a chance to mingle, and so that meant more fliers! In all, I probably spent about $50 at Kinkos, and perhaps we could have done a better job establishing an appropriate start time.
During the Open House day, we had the K and 1st students gather around 15 minutes before showtime, while I had the 3rd graders prepare themselves right around showtime. The trouble however was that I was the de facto MfM host/representative, and so I found it hard to be at two places at once. I had to leave my 3rd graders (fortunately, I had them congregate around their classrooms rather than close to the performance area), in order to introduce the Kinders. Also, there was a slight change in plans - the K groups were to merge because of low attendance for the smaller group; in retrospect, we should have combined them from the start. This caused a slight delay in the K start time, and pushed back the entire schedule a little bit.
The performances themselves were quite wonderful. There were a *lot* of parents watching each student group, which was a blast to see. There was a little bit of a logistical challenge as there was only one way in or out of the performance area, and so one grade had to clear out completely before the next grade could go on. However, otherwise, it worked out well.
As for my own students, they performed splendidly, if I say so myself. :) The students performed far better than they did during any rehearsal that I conducted with them, including the one just 15 minutes before we hit the stage. For the record, we sang "You'll Sing a Song", followed by "Rattlin' Can", and ending with "Do Re Mi". For the Rattlin' can, I had brought out a larger "can" compared to what we had been using earlier in the year - this one was a bright orange bucket from Home Depot, holding a shoebox with a bag that held a 64-oz juice container. These props were very easy to see from where the parents were.
I am absolutely expecting that we will be doing another spring sing next year, again perhaps during the Open House. In all, it went pretty well for an inaugural performance, and it'll only take minor tweaks to have it go more smoothly next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment