Elementary Orchestra Solo/Ensemble, Part 4: Festival Day!

 

Leading up to our elementary orchestra Solo/Ensemble festival, my coworker and I are as prepared as we can be.  The schedules have been shared with students and families; folders for the adjudicators have been stuffed with the room schedule, rubrics (color-coded by elementary school and then put in order by time slot), extra blank rubrics in the back, judges copies (for the most part Orchestra Expressions books plus copies of the extra repertoire sheets), and pencils; thank you notes for the adjudicators have been written; checks for the adjudicators have been picked up; final details have been emailed to the adjudicators; and we've touched base with the custodian working that morning to make sure they are set for us.  We've printed schedules-at-a-glance for ourselves, schedules to post outside each of the sites, and schedules by school to post on the wall if anyone needs to check their time.  We've grabbed some rolls of masking tape and the laminated stack of signs that we reuse each year.  We also have a few spare instruments with us, plenty of spare music, a pile of blank intro sheets if anyone has forgotten to bring theirs and needs to write out a new one, as well as a basket with extra rosin/strings/pencils/rock stops/sponges, etc.

My district's elementary orchestra Solo/Ensemble festival takes place at the high school from 8:00 am until noon on a Saturday morning.  My coworker and I arrive by 7:00 am and get right to work setting up the space.  The cafeteria serves as the warm-up room for everyone, and then the different classrooms in the music wing plus a nearby lecture hall are the sites (four or five total sites).  The custodian sets up a folding table in each room for the adjudicator and makes sure all the rooms we need have been unlocked for us.  One of us sets up the chairs and stands and rock stops needed for each site (we've worked out ahead of time how many are needed in each room), sets out some extra chairs for audience members, distributes the folders for the adjudicators, and puts a bunch of chairs and music stands scattered around the cafeteria for students to use when they are warming up.  The other of us tapes up the laminated signs and the schedule outside of each site along with a pencil attached to a piece of yarn so we can cross off who has played as the morning progresses.  (We do not have room monitors for our event).  We're as efficient as we can be, and are usually just about finishing setting up when the adjudicators and first students arrive.

We welcome the adjudicators, show them to their rooms, and give any last-minute instructions.  Most of our adjudicators have worked with us for many years, so they know the routine!

We greet students and families as they arrive and let them know they can unpack wherever they like and can leave their coats and cases on the tables in the cafeteria.  We tune instruments and make sure students know when their time slot is and where they are going.

If a student's ensemble partner is unable to participate (or they are a no-show, which inevitably does happen in a few instances each year), we will play with them so they don't have to perform alone.  In this case, I tell the student to come grab me when they are about to go to their room and then double check which part I'm playing (and review who's giving the breath, who's going first for the round, etc.) on our way in.  I'll perform with the student, and then leave right away so I can get back to greeting families and tuning instruments while the adjudicator is working with the student.

When I see a student packing up after they're finished, I'll ask how it went and what comments the adjudicator had for them so we can chat a bit.  I'll thank them and their family for coming and wish them a good rest of the weekend.

The morning goes pretty quickly!  Before I know it, rooms are finishing up, and it's time to pull the signs off the walls, stack the chairs and stands, and get the rooms looking how they did when we arrived.  We collect all the comment sheets and sort them by school (which is easy as they are color-coded by school).

Then, before school the following Monday, I scan the comment sheets, just so I have an electronic copy for myself.  I make a photo copy of the comment sheets for any ensembles, so each ensemble partner can have their own paper copy, and then I get the comment sheets in order of when I'll be seeing the students for small groups that next week.

The laminated signs, folders for the adjudicators, pencils on yarn, and extra intro sheets go back on the shelf for another year, and paper schedules get recycled.

I also order prints of the pictures I've taken from tour week and get those posted on our "STAR Musician" wall, so students can find themselves when they drop off their instrument the next week at school.   Solo/Ensemble self-reflections have to be printed off in time for full orchestra, if they haven't already.  There's also just one more week of small groups in their "scrambled" small groups with their ensemble partners, so I also have to create the next small group schedule, if I haven't finished that yet.  It's a busy weekend, at the end of a busy unit, but well worth it!

With the self-reflections, I do jot down quick comments to what students write.  Often a star or smiley face or "Great!" or "Congrats!" or "That sounds like a great thing to keep working on" is enough, but sometimes a longer written response is needed.  It is really helpful for me to read through all the responses--I learn a lot about how a student felt about their performance when they put down their thoughts in writing, and I read responses that really need a written response from me before I hand them back.  I will also type up a list of what students say went well and include those in the weekly orchestra newsletter that next week.

See also:

Elementary Orchestra Solo/Ensemble, Part 1: Description and Additional Repertoire

Elementary Orchestra Solo/Ensemble, Part 2: Timeline and Documents

Elementary Orchestra Solo/Ensemble, Part 3: Creating the Schedule

Celebration!

 

A little departure from my usual sort of post.  I was checking on my blog for the first time in a couple of months and noticed I had reached 100K views!  When I started this blog nearly 10 years ago (August 24, 2015, to be exact, with the help of my sister), I had no thoughts of how many people this might someday reach; I just wanted to document the resources and bulletin boards I was creating for myself and share them out if they could be helpful to other elementary orchestra teachers as I entered my fourth year of teaching.  Teaching elementary orchestra is a pretty niche topic, so it's kind of amazing that there have been that many views!  I do realize that many of them are bots, but I'm still going to consider this as a celebration-worthy milestone :)

Celebrating is not something that comes easily to me--there's always a new to-do list with something that needs doing, and I don't like being the center of attention, but hitting this milestone made me take pause for a moment and reflect.  I took some time and browsed through past posts (this makes 118 posts total!) to recognize for myself all the hours of work that went into creating all the resources and posts over this last decade--gosh, that's a lot of bulletin boards and repertoire packets and arrangements!

I remarked to my sister that it's hard to comprehend that big of a number and what sort of effect these posts might have on orchestra teachers and students around the country (and world!), and she made a analogy to compound interest--sharing over time and continuing to add on a (somewhat) consistent basis leads to a lot of growth.  A ripple effect, for sure.

So, I guess my advice here is to take some time to celebrate yourself--your work, your effort over time, your achievements all add up :)

I keep a Google Doc of positive emails that I have received, but then I rarely take the time to read through them.  As part of this 100K celebration, I thought it was about time to revisit that document, and it was very touching to read through emails from parents, staff, administrators, bits from student reflections etc.--as well as comments from this blog--over the years.  Keeping those positive notes and drawings from students in a drawer or bulletin board to look back on during difficult days or storing them in one place in a digital format, like a Google Doc, is great when you could use a reminder of the positive difference you're making in the lives of so many others over the course of days and months and years.  It adds up!

Thanks all who have checked out teachingelementaryorchestra.blogspot.com over the years!  And thanks to all who have commented either on this blog or on Facebook groups for orchestra teachers that I am a member of--it means a lot!  I've even received a phone call at school from an orchestra teacher in Colorado, who tracked me down to thank me for my "Jingle Bells" arrangement--so cool!!!  

I hope you have found something on here that has given you a bit of inspiration or saved you some time or or gave you something new to think about or reaffirmed something you were already doing!  As usual, let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to see, and I will see what I can do! 

And if anyone's curious, here are the most popular posts, by total views:

String Fest Reflection Letters

Our annual district-wide String Fest field trip and concert is done for another year!  Instead of having students write up a reflection sheet to share their thoughts about their experience, this year elementary orchestra students wrote letters to the middle and high school orchestra students.  They answered essentially the same questions I would have asked them anyway, but this way they were able to communicate with students they performed alongside last week.  We took a large chunk of time during full orchestra to write letters, and I graded them based on how many questions were responded to in the letter.  Next, I sent them to our middle and high school teachers to distribute to their students.  Students really got into this writing assignment because they knew they were writing to real people--some even addressed their letter to an older sibling or neighbor in orchestra :)

Elementary students were super excited when they came to full orchestra a later week and found handwritten letters to each of them on their stands!  The high school orchestra members had taken a letter, written a response, and then stapled the two together so it was easy to return to the correct elementary musician.  The response letters were so positive and encouraging; it was so nice to read through them!  What a great way to make connections between the different grade levels and schools in our orchestra community! 

Update: I've added a second letter template with sentence starters to make it easier for those students who need the support.  I print the letters double-sided, and students can choose which side they write theirs on.  I've also started marking in the top right corner the student's school and grade level because each middle/high school receives letters from two elementary schools.  This way it is easier to sort and send the letters back to the correct elementary school :)

• Letter templates plus directions (Google Doc)

Inspirational Quotes for the New Year Bulletin Board

Happy New Year! For my first bulletin board of 2017, I displayed four inspirational quotes with images of fireworks.  For the two shorter quotes, I used my mom's Cricut to cut out the large letters, and then I just printed out the longer quotes.  A few colorful markers brightened up the fireworks, and then colored borders matched each quote to its author.

Quotes included:

"Whatever you are, be a good one."
—Abraham Lincoln

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
—Oscar Wilde

"The expert in anything was once a beginner."

—Helen Hayes

"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

—A.A. Milne

• Google doc of quotes and clip art

Happy New Year!

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 :)

Music In Our Schools Month: Reflections

During March, students complete a short questionnaire where they respond to a couple of prompts.  I explain that March is Music In Our Schools Month where we get to celebrate all the musical opportunities we have at school and that the questionnaire is a chance to share our thoughts about music.

I type up the responses and include them in the weekly orchestra email and send them to staff and administrators, wishing them all a happy Music In Our Schools Month.  And then, of course, the responses also end up on the bulletin board.  I do these early in the month so students and staff get to enjoy reading them as they walk by the orchestra room for the rest of the month.  Orchestra students like to read what their classmates have written as well as spot their own responses from the lists.

• MIOSM questionnaire prompts (Word document)

• MIOSM questionnaire prompts (PDF)

Another week in March is our tour week where we perform our Solo/Ensemble pieces for a class.  Pictures from those performances get added to the bulletin board, and then the last week of March we get a request day during full orchestra.  The week before, the question of the week is to put in a request for full orchestra so that I have time to organize the requests and figure out the order of pieces to make the best use of our time together.

Check out this post for more bulletin board pictures from MIOSM.

Concert Reflection Bulletin Board

After the winter concert, I typed up student concert reflection responses and posted them for all to see :)  It's so neat to read through what students are proud of with their work in orchestra and which pieces held the most meaning to them and why.  When reading through their responses, it is clear that music is making a positive impact on my students and that they hope they're having a positive impact on their audience members too!  Enjoy!

Winter Concert Reflection

After our first concert of the year, I have students share their thoughts about their experience through a concert reflection sheet (which I based off of what was already being used by our elementary band teacher).  During the first full orchestra after the concert, I have these reflection sheets plus pencils already on everyone's stand, and then after our warm-up, I turn on some background music while everyone is writing.  Depending on how long it takes for students to finish and the class atmosphere at the moment, I may have a couple of students verbally share some thoughts; otherwise musicians just turn these in when they're finished and start practicing the next piece while others are still working.

• Concert reflection (Word document)

• Concert reflection (PDF
• Concert reflection (Google Form)

These are so much fun to read though.  While we may talk a little bit after the concert or during small groups or when a student is dropping off his or her instrument in the morning, I learn so much more about what really made an impression on my students and how they view their learning in orchestra and how they see themselves as musicians by reading through their responses.

Then, since we music teachers are also advocates for music and music education and our students, I share these first-hand accounts of music making an impact on our students with as many people as I can think of :)

I type up many of the responses as a bulleted list after selected reflection questions and include that in the weekly email to orchestra families.  I also email the list of responses to the entire school staff and post it on a bulletin board for the whole school to see.

Not only is this a way for students to process their thoughts about what may have been their first experience performing on a stage in front of an audience, but it's also a way to use writing in a performance-based class and a fantastic advocacy too.  Concert reflections are definitely worth the few minutes it takes in class, and it can be nice to go through the questions each year change out a question or two for something that is more meaningful for this particular concert or group of students.

**Update: In recent years, I've started writing a reflection letter of my own as a sample and a way to share my thoughts with the orchestra.  I will have this on the screen as students come in to full orchestra that day, and as I read through the prompts/directions for their reflection, I will refer to my letter as an example of a possible response for the different questions.