At school I am teaching my first grade student songs about weather for their Musical Feb 26th. I even made a PowerPoint with all the words along with pictures to help the kids learn the words and get the idea of the weather "Stuff" we are singing about. Well, the program starts off with a really cool song where the kids will be weather announcers and will call off "weather" words. The songs kind of go in this order: storms, rain, snow, wind, rainbow, sun and then we sing a "cool" song called "The Water Cycle" tying it all together. There are a total of 11 songs and two speech pieces and still is under 30 minutes. The music is very appropriate and fun because they are learning about the water cycle and weather in their regular classes. I found music recordings for all the songs we are singing except two, so I used my Finale music writing program to make accompaniments for the songs and put them all on a CD. One song I wrote music for was, "I Can Sing a Rainbow." Unlike the one on the play list for this blog sung by Delta Good(?), I have beautiful harp and string music as the background with bell accent towards the end and it sounds so sweet with the angel children's voices singing it.
Well, here is the story...As one first grade class was singing "I Can Sing a Rainbow" I was informed by a little girl sitting next to me that "Parker" was crying. Mind you we are sitting with the lights off to watch the PowerPoint pictures as we sing and he was in front of the projection table with the projector so I didn't see the commotion on my own. I stopped the music and saw the most pathetic sobbing little boy with two little girls and a little boy trying to console the little guy. I asked him to come to me, gave him a hug and asked him, "Can you tell me what is the matter?" He was sobbing!! "Are you hurt?" I asked? "No!" he shook his head. I squeezed him a little tighter and asked, "Is the music making you cry?" He looked at me with the tears running down his cheek, and he whimpered... "Yes, my grandma." "It reminds you of your Grandma?" I asked. "Yes, she died.".... I asked. "I guess you loved your Grandma?" and with that he nodded his head, yes.
Oh, how that wretched at my heart. With all the tender feelings I have for my Mom, I said a few things to him about how lucky we are to have such wonderful Grandmas in our lives. And then I said, "I bet your Grandma is so happy to know that you love her too." He slowly calmed down, and then we sang some high energy songs and he did leave my class with a smile on his face.
The end result is ... I was kind of worried that my accompaniment would not go over with the kids because it is not high tech (one cannot get high tech on this music writing program) and it is one song they all seem to really like to sing. I guess I am doing something right!
Love your family and give them a Hug!
4 comments:
What a sweet little boy...Sounds like it will be a good program!!
So tender. Rainbows remind me of my mother.
That's a sweet/sad story! Poor kid! At least he had friends there to make him feel better.
Ok, that got me all choked up and now I'm sitting here with tears running down my cheeks! It reminds me of my grandma. I was told that before she passed away, she was asked what her favorite color was (I think they were preparing for her funeral in advance and needed to know what color of flowers to use) and she replied with "every color of the rainbow". Now every time I see one I think of her.
The program does sound very nice. I may have to come to it if I hear about the date of it before it's over. (assuming also that my kids won't have something that night.)
Post a Comment