Spring Break Recital Project!

Happy Monday readers!  As an elementary beginning band instructor a few of the challenges of my job are Thanksgiving break, winter break, and finally spring break.  These are the long extended times when my students will either leave their instrument at school to collect dust or take it home and forget about it, forget how to play it and finally forget that they joined the band in the first place.  In order to overcome this challenge a mentor teacher of mine introduced me to a Thanksgiving Break Recital project which gave extra credit to students who performed for their families and made their own programs.  After trying this out for the first time last year I have adapted it to use for spring break as well!

I've included some bolded vocabulary terms that I realized some of my students didn't know.  It also gives them plenty of room for creativity as I had some students make posters with pictures of their performances or make their own programs.  If they don't want to go to those lengths this does fold nicely into a program they can use as well.

My hope is that this will encourage them to perform for their families more often and to get used to playing alone.  By this time in spring however they have had plenty of opportunities for solo playing in class as well as at the solo and ensemble festival a dozen of my students participated in this past weekend.  I even discovered that some of my 4th grade teachers have allowed them to play a short song for their peers at the end of the school day!

Hopefully this can help anyone who is also struggling to get their students back into playing after extended breaks.  Does anyone else do something similar?

Have a great week!