End-of-Year Reflection and Advice for Incoming Students

  

During our last full orchestra of the year, students share their thoughts about their experience in orchestra with an end-of-the-year reflection.  Thanks to our elementary band teacher for the idea and for many of the questions!

I'll type up the responses and include many of them in the weekly email to families, and then I take their advice to next year's orchestra students and post them on the wall for all to see :)

• End-of-year-reflection sheet (Word document)

• End-of-year reflection sheet (PDF)

Here are some of my beginners' comments from this year:

What was the best part about playing in orchestra this year?

• Medieval Kings
• Getting to play cool songs
• String Fest
• Playing for family and friends
• Having my composition performed at the concert
• Performing for the school
• Learning the notes on a staff
• The concerts
• Trying new things
• String Fest because I got to do the thing I love for the day
• Playing very hard pieces
• Seeing how much I’ve grown from the beginning to now
• I really liked performing Medieval Kings in the spring concert because it was complicated and showed all that we learned throughout the year
• The best part was trying amazing pieces and discovering a new talent

What part about playing in orchestra are you the most proud of?

• Medieval Kings
• Playing different types of music
• Concerts
• Having my composition performed at the concert
• Playing Ukrainian Bell Carol
• How I did on my solo for “It’s the Blues Man!”
• Composing our own pieces
• Knowing all the notes
• Knowing some pieces by heart
• I can finally play an instrument that I like and I’m good at.
• Everything
• That I got so good so fast at something new!
• I am most proud of holding my bow
• Playing at String Fest—it was an amazing experience, I even got to play with my cousin!

And some from my second-year students:

What was the best part about playing in orchestra this year?

• I liked how the groups were small so we could go more in depth in our pieces.
• Definitely having the time to have fun playing with friends!  Many good times here!
• Getting to play more challenging pieces of music in orchestra (Telemann, Dragon Dance)
• I got a taste of playing in a group with people my age
• Everyone was able to stay together during songs
• Being able to have the experience of playing an instrument
• Being with friends
• The Solo/Ensemble tours
• String Fest
• I learned a lot of new things

What part about playing in orchestra are you the most proud of?

• I am most proud of how we all played in unison to make really nice sounding music
• Being a legacy for other 5th/6th graders!
• I’m proud to be playing the viola because not many people know how to play an instrument like this
• I was playing with everyone—not in front or behind them.
• My friends and I play more together
• The fact that we played my composition at the spring concert
• That we all work together well
• Playing for the kindergartners
• I learned quickly
• Knowing that I’m able to play an instrument
• Learning technique

We always have a lot to be proud of at the end of the school year!


And advice from this year's orchestra members to next year's orchestra members:

I typed these up in different fonts and cut them out in individual strips--they read like fortune cookies :)

C Major Packet and Scavenger Hunt

As we get into our unit on the key of C Major, I present my students with a packet of pieces that use the C Major key signature (there is one piece in A minor).  To become better acquainted with these new pieces, I tell students that I have a scavenger hunt for them.  Some questions will have one more than one possible answer, and the same title may be used more than once.

I do very few written worksheets in orchestra, but I like this one because it's a good review of many topics that we've covered over the course of the year (anacrusis, triad, note-reading etc.) and it exposes students to some new musical concepts that we haven't officially covered (6/8 time signature, dotted quarter-eighth note rhythm).  And when students get to the music history questions, their heads always turn to the music history timeline wall to figure out where each composer would fit.  Nice use of resources :)

I tried to include a variety of public domain pieces, some familiar and some not so familiar.  Here are the contents:

• Pop Goes the Weasel
• Theme from Surprise Symphony
• November (Bohemian Folk Song)
• Sailor's Hornpipe
• Mexican Hat Dance
• America, the Beautiful
• Red Wing
• Minuet in C

Enjoy!

• C Major repertoire packet (Word document)
   
• C Major repertoire packet (PDF)
   
• Scavenger hunt (Word document)
   
• Scavenger hunt (PDF)
   
• Answer key (PDF)