All Star School Song

    When I first came to my school in August 2012, I found a big poster with words to what looked like our school song. Unfortunately, no one in the school could remember the tune and the words were...well, kind of depressing. Our school has been labeled as "struggling" up until this year, so apparently someone thought it was a good idea to cite the fact that "even though we don't make the grade, we're still proud of our school." Seriously, the words were very similar to that.

    SO I decided that we needed a new school song. We have been working very hard at building a solid sense of community within our school, and I thought a school song would reinforce those goals. Since last year was my first year teaching at Hoffman-Boston, I spent the year getting my program together and didn't focus on this whole "school song" issue. However, around March/April, my principal (who was also new to our school last year) expressed an interest in creating a music video/song/something to that effect that would reinforce the values that we were trying so hard to instill in our students.

     I did some research on the net, and came up with a few different prospects. I landed on SongSpun, the website of Mr. Brian Chevalier, who does workshops in schools that focus on respect, anti-bullying, etc. Since our school has been focusing a lot on Character Education, I thought that he would be a great choice of people to come to our school and help us write our school song.

    Mr. C came to our school a few weeks ago and worked with grade levels K-5 on Monday to come up with lyrics and a "feel" for our song. The students used their critical thinking skills and reading/writing knowledge to come up with short poems that ended up comprising the lyrics of our song. The lyrics talked about our new PBIS pledge (you'll see it in the first verse), as well as our identity as a STEM school. Here are the lyrics we came up with:

       Verse (2nd grade): We respect ourselves and others
                                      And our surroundings too
                                      Allstars shine, all the time
                                      Allstars are true blue

        Chorus (3rd grade): We're the Hoffman Boston Allstars
                                        Shining brightly in the sky
                                        Learning through discovery
                                        So our dreams can come alive

                     (4th grade): We're the Hoffman Boston Allstars
                                        We're yellow and we're blue
                                        We don't give up until the end
                                        We help each other through

                                        Respecting me, respecting you (4x)

         Verse (5th grade): No matter your appearance
                                       No matter who you are
                                       Here at Hoffman Boston
                                       Together we'll go far

                                       Chorus

         Bridge (1st grade): Through science and technology
                                        And math we show the way
                                        We're working hard on projects
                                        We're learning every day

                                        Chorus

       Kindergarten helped Mr. C come up with movements for the chorus of the song, which we then taught the whole school in the assembly on the following day. Mr. C then went home and recorded the song with his voice, guitar, and a beat and provided me with a CD recording of the whole song, as well as a karaoke version to use with the kids once we have learned the whole song.

Here is a video of me singing our new school song, which I am now teaching to all my students!

    At age 24, I still remember my elementary school song, and I hope that my students remember theirs for years to come!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!
~Molly