Happy Holidays from the BAND Department!

I was so incredibly proud of the bandlings this last week! Both concerts at SGE and RGS went off without a hitch and were pitch-perfect! I hope you all enjoyed them as well. I passed out special practice cards for  Winter Break called, "Band Bingo." The library in Mchenry always has winter and summer reading programs to motivate children to read during breaks, so I decided to do the same with my bandlings! On the bingo card, (HERE is a link) you will see that there are always options to simply practice for 20 minutes. However, there are also really fun options like "play holiday music for friends and family," and "teach yourself 2 new notes from your book." There are also options that ask the students to surf on You Tube (with parent permission, of course) to find videos of people playing their instrument and/or the President's Own Marine Band. I know that every household has their own rules about You Tube and I did talk with the students about following their household rules and to seek your help. I did want to include these activities because it is SO incredibly helpful for students to see and hear good examples professionals performing. With the Internet, these experiences are much more readily available. If your child does want to complete any of the You Tube squares, be sure to have them fill out the survey on my website so that I know what video they watched and what they thought of it.

As the bandlings complete the activities, they should mark an "X" on the square and have you initial the square. I will have small prizes for up to 3 BINGOS and if they complete the whole card, there will be an extra prize. I know that practicing is not always possible over these breaks as there can be a lot of travel. If students don't complete any of the card, there is no repercussion. However, some students can practice more over break because they are not traveling and I wanted to make it a bit more fun.

Please scroll down to the second sheet of the Bingo card for links to important websites that might help and further instructions.

HERE is a link to the "Schedules" page of my website with the schedules for January and February. I had a lot of things to work around in January (namely Scantron and Isteep testing for 5th graders.)

I hope you all have a wonderful and restful full of memories and maybe a little music too!

Amanda Storer
astorer@nsd2.com
www.mrsstorersbands.weebly.com