I was starting to feel real inadequate.... then the center for gifted kids
came up.... I feel much better.
When I taught at a gifted center, I was able to get SO much more music in
and out of kids. It was really phenomenal. Sounds like you're doing a
wonderful job.

(yes - I'm going to FMEA - I'm all registered and everything.)

On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 10:33 PM, Linda Z wrote:

> I must be procrastinating - I've broke one LONG letter into three so far...
>
> Here's some advantages to starting in third grade:
> This year I opened up my room two mornings a week from 7:30-7:50 for 4th
> and 5th graders to continue testing. And the last two years we've had
> Recorder Club that meets after school. Last year 12 souls of widely varying
> abilities performed unison and 2 part songs quite well. This year I am in
> heaven. I limited it to students who passed "Red Bead" - (2nd bead past
> black belt). I had kind of helped and cajoled most everyone to purple belt
> last year, most could play up to brown belt by ear, but those who got onto
> the beads were probably actually reading notes...
> And there are between 24-27 proficient musicians showing up on Thursdays
> this year. I put out 9 music stands and 3 musicians share a folder of music.
> Half of them play alto (passed 10 belts and 10 beads on soprano), 3 have
> sopraninos. We started out the year with "A Paris" from their alto book.
> We're playing a "Triple" piece from Cak's book, the new arrangement of "Ode
> to Joy" in Recorder Classroom (the alto part was tricky for a couple weeks),
> and some fun Recorder Classroom pieces like Zippy Toad for warm-ups. Then
> they break into groups and are working up a piece to play. I envision a
> "prism" experience where little groups start playing at different corners of
> the room.
>
> Yes, our school is a center for gifted students. And many of them not only
> have "super CPU's" as Martha described them once, but they also are quite
> talented in Music and love it. Though I do have to admit that last week
> (week 9) was the first week they sounded like anything on these songs -
> that's the next post...
> Linda Z
>


--
Martha Stanley, NBCT
www.marthabeesmusic.com
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas first!