Experiencing Different Genres of Music

I am a music teacher in an elementary school in southwest Mississippi. My job includes teaching general music to kindergarten through third graders from regular education classrooms and a special education classroom. I am also responsible for organizing musical programs for each grade level to perform during the school year. Most of the students that I teach come from low income, single-parent families, and are predominantly African American. Our school is a Title I school, therefore, our students all eat free breakfast and lunch at our school. The city of Magnolia, where our school is located, was hit by hurricane Katrina, with many of our students' homes being damaged or destroyed by the high winds. Our school facility, itself, only suffered minimal damage. We also are located close enough to New Orleans to have received students from the New Orleans area, whose families now live in FEMA trailers, or in other available housing in our town. This is my first year as the music teacher for this school, and I am in the process of finding various resources to use to help my students experience a wide variety of genres of music. Most of my students only listen to rap or hip hop music. I want them to hear, see, and perform music from different cultures around the world, as well as experience the wide variety of music available from our very own American culture. I have brought in many different types of CD's from my own personal collection for my students to listen to this year. But, I would like to have some visual resources for the students to be able to see different types of music being performed. Being able to visualize where the sounds are coming from gives a child a much better understanding of instruments and rhythm, and makes the music come alive for them. It also gives them a clearer picture of the history of the music they hear by being able to see who wrote or performed the music that they are being exposed to. But, being able to hear the sounds, and see the music being performed is only part of the wonderment of music. Children also need to be able to perform music, whether it's their own compositions, or music that is taught to them. For this proposal, I am requesting a Percussion Cookbook, which includes teaching tips, a full accompaniment CD, and orchestrations for percussion ensembles; a Classroom Video Kit of 14 videos that show interactive performances of different types of music, including jazz, rock, orchestral, medieval, Latin, Caribbean, and African drumming. This kit also includes a teaching manual, activities, and quizzes for students. I would also like to have the documentary film, "World Drum Video," so that my students could see over 250 of the world's greatest percussionists performing various types of music. Also, I would like to include in my proposal a set of Remo drums and a World-Wide Rhythm Set, which would allow at least twenty-three students at a time to perform the music that they learn. The instruments requested in this proposal include: Konga Drum Tom-Tom Drum Bongos Djembe Tubano Large Gathering Drum Small Gathering Drum Gourd Thumb Piano Cactus Rainstick Brass Gong Mungu Drum Djembe (8") Washboard Gourd Shekere Goat Hoof Rattle Castanets Large Guiro Grass Caxixi Rattle Tin Cowbell Uyot Stick Rattle Straight Tamborine Gourd Maracas These instruments and videos will allow the students in our school to experience music that they might not ever get a chance to encounter elsewhere. And these resources can be used over and over again in our school, for years to come, to help give many children an exciting and unusual touch of the wonderful world of music. Thank you for your consideration in possibly providing these amazing resources for our students. They would be so excited to receive them!