Past projects 4
Young Sensei Students Need Recorders to Teach Others!
Funded Jul 24, 2018Happy Summer! Thank you for your generous donations. I see my students in a few weeks and they will be DELIGHTED to continue their sensei training! You are instrumental, pun intended, in helping me grow the music program I imagine for every student in this city. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Metcalfe
Beat Buddies and Boomwhackers for Beautiful Music
Funded Mar 27, 2018I'm blown away. Your generous donations have guaranteed delivery of our new materials in time for our upcoming spring showcase!!!! I can't wait to share with you the music we will make and the memories our students will have. Thank you for making our classroom so harmonious!! Stay tuned- pun intended- we will share updates soon!!!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Metcalfe
This classroom project was brought to life by Ripple.Rhythm Exploration
Funded Oct 8, 2017You cannot imagine the joy you have brought to my classroom since your agreement to fund our new musical instruments this fall. When the first packages arrived, squeals of delight could be heard all week in the music room. "OH MY GAWD!" exclaimed one kindergartener. "These people are AMAZING!" This is the kind of impact that just grazes the surface of how much you are appreciated.
In the fall, when the baskets of shakers arrived, we played games where we kept the pulse with shakers, used shakers as important props in movement, and even became so inspired that we decided to make our own out of recycled materials in Art class! During our Hispanic Heritage Festival in November, students performed salsa dance while using their new brightly colored shakers. It was a THRILL to be able to put 70 or so students together on stage, each, at long last, with an instrument! The music was infectious- the smiles, priceless.
Our classroom drum kits arrived just after winter break, so it was a fantastic way to enter 2018. As we learned to use our new drums with care, we also discovered that there were many new sounds- that not all drums sound the same, that drums can all play the same parts or they can play different parts, and that drum circles are a great way to get a whole community involved in music making! It is our hope that, as our skills develop, we can start to teach others how to be part of group music-making, whether it is simple beats in kindergarten, call and response rhythms in first grade, or beginning to put together similar and different patterns in second grade!
Your donation, in short, has helped me reach over 500 children from two different schools. Their passion for music has only increased, and my future goals for these students include a classroom where every student has access to pitched instruments. I want our third graders to find that by the time they leave early childhood music, it would not only be EASY to enroll in band or chorus or orchestra (or any ensemble), but it would be FUN and familiar territory.
Thank you for being such an important part of our village of young musicians. It means the world to us.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Metcalfe
Sewing The Seeds of Success:Teach Little Kids to Sew!
Funded Jan 27, 2017Since embarking on our journey of sewing enrichment, the Kindergarten and Therapeutic Intervention Program here at H.B. Lawrence School have created magnificent things! When our boxes first began to arrive, the cheers in the classroom would cause my next door neighbors to look in and see what was happening. Cries of "this is the best thing ever!" and "oh my gosh, we get to keep what we make???" have been echoed for months since we began. You cannot begin to imagine the joy, the focus, and the absolute pride that you have gifted our students with by sending sewing materials our way.
I get each group of kindergarten/therapeutic program students 2-3 times a week for 30 minutes. They complete at least two projects in an 8 week period, though some have completed more. Our first project was creating a sensory quilt for the classroom "Calm Corner", where students can go to take a break or time-out when feeling overwhelmed. Each student got to decorate a square from the kit with tie-on decorations and "puffy paint" (a gift from one of our teachers). Afterward, as part of team-building, students tied each of their squares to a buddy, until the quilt grew bigger and bigger. When we ran out of squares, the blanket was complete and brought to the classroom ceremoniously. It is now a beloved part of the classroom for students- they proudly point to it when I visit their classroom, wrap themselves in it when they are struggling, and giggle when they touch the different parts of the fabric and show off their square contribution.
Nothing gives our little ones more pride than being able to make something they can give to someone in their family, so our next project involved making potholders (or as one of my students called it, a "coffee carpet") to take home. Weaving was no easy task, and it took us a few weeks to get comfortable with the process of going behind one color and in front of the other with a separate strand. Once we did, however, projects began flying off the shelves! A few of our potholders adorn backpacks as tactile tapestries of weeks of hard work. Others were given to parents and are used lovingly at home "on spaghetti night at the table" or "when my titi comes over to eat". It is so heartwarming to see students take these projects home and have something to offer their families!
Our current project is a student favorite, because the end result is a toy that they get to keep for themselves: stuffed animals. Creating these toys is a culmination of all the skills we've worked on throughout the year: we started with lacing cards, threading beads, and learning to tie knots from the blanket. Now, with the addition of practicing weaving skills on our potholders, the skills necessary to actively sew a stuffed animal together are all present! So far, just a few students have finished their stuffed animals and shared them with each other. I have never seen such happy faces, or confidence, on the faces of our youngest. The most rewarding part is hearing my students say things to their families like, "Mom, I can sew now! I fixed [my friend's] project for him and now he can do it too!"
I think this is the start of a beautiful program. The impact you have had on our students has also shown administrators in our building just how necessary this skill is, and how capable young children are of obtaining sewing skills early. I am optimistic that this pilot program will grow for next year, and the district has already invested in stuffed animal projects for next year's enrichment!
I couldn't be more grateful to you. Most days, I'm just the music teacher, but since we began, I've become a music teacher, a sewing teacher, and a cheerleader for my students' fine motor skills growth. Best of all? I'm getting fewer requests to tie shoes, because my little ones are willing to try it for themselves. If that isn't a reward in itself, I don't know what is!
I hope you will peruse our photos, this letter, and anything else I can think of to share from our experience with joy. You have brought so much to our classrooms; it is inconceivable that we could ever return such a magnanimous favor. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all you have done for our kids. I will close with a single testimony from one of our students.
"Sewing was fun because we get to learn how to sew, and pretty soon we can probably sew without instructions. So when I can do that, I'm going to make a fidget-spinner made out of fabric with metal pieces holding it. When I get older, I'm going to make teddy bears for people who wished they existed for themselves. Thank you for making me get better at sewing!" -Yomar”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Metcalfe