I teach music appreciation and vocal music students in grades 6-8. Our community is a diverse mix of students from a variety of backgrounds, but, overall, we are an inner-city school with extreme poverty and limited resources. Many of my students do not speak English at home. A full 80% qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. My students rarely leave their neighborhoods and have limited access to the world around them. Many are dealing with a lot of trauma in their personal lives and are forced to grow up far too quickly at home. I try to help everybody feel free of worries and stress through music-making and singing! My students work on having a positive growth mindset and making everyone feel safe and included. I strive to instill a lifelong love and appreciation of the fine arts through music-making, while also teaching skills like teamwork, confidence, creativity, and self-motivation. My students are just like any other middle school students, struggling with finding their place and their identity. But together in music, they can all feel like they belong!
My Project
This project will bring S-Cubed (an entire curriculum for teaching signtsinging) and Music Prodigy (a digital platform for students to access from their personal phones or laptops for daily practice) to my chorus classroom! This combined collection of materials will compliment each other and allow students to practice skills both in and and out of class with greater independence.
Access to a more structured sightsinging curriculum and a digital platform to practice on their own will help my singers become more confident singers with stronger music reading skills!
This program would allow students the freedom to go at their own pace and for me, as the teacher, to gain greater insight into their own individual progress as a sight singer and more accurate assessment.
The S-Cubed Sight Singing system is a workshop-lesson plan combination that includes PowerPoint files, video teaching links and video teaching tip links which will provide an abundance of resources and varied tools to help teach sight singing to my middle school beginners successfully! It is designed to be fun and engaging for the students AND me! This whole system will cut down on planning and assessment time allowing me to be more focused on building student relationships and ensuring greater student success!
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Rathe and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
