Some of you might remember that last year, I decided to put together an All-School Show, where everyone in the school participated in a collaborative performance. Last year, we put on a Music K-8 Magazine show called Hungry to Learn- click here to read that post- and it was a huge success, so my principal wanted me to do a similar project this year.
Since my school has a STEM focus, I decided to find something that connected to that theme. Soon enough, I found another show from Plank Road Publishing called Science Rocks!
This year, almost every student in the school grades PreK/Montessori through 5th participated, save for a few special education students whose teachers felt it was too much sound/light/etc. for them this year. Due to the large amount of PreK/Montessori students in my school, I opted to break these students up into three groups with a different song for each, which worked WAY better than having all 120 students on the stage for one song like last year!
The songs for each grade level connected to one of their Science SOLs (Virginia's standardized tests are called Standards of Learning or SOLs). They were as follows:
- 5th Grade- Rock It!- 3 classifications for rocks
- 4th Grade- Clouds- 4 types of clouds
- 3rd Grade- Not Your Imagination- animal adaptations
- 2nd Grade- The Life of a Tree- life cycle of a tree
- 1st Grade- I've Got a System- systems of the body
- Kindergarten- Solid, Liquid, or Gas
- Montessori- Food Chain- producers, predators, prey
- PreK 1- Talkin' About the Moon- moon phases
- PreK 2- Flower, Stem, Leaves and Roots/March of the Plants- parts of a plant
My awesome art teacher and some of our students worked on a beautiful set (pictured below), with a panel for each of the songs/themes.
We had a dress rehearsal during the day, so that all students could be involved, and then an amazing amount of parents and students showed up to the night time performance, after which they were able to participate in some hands-on STEM activities. I am selling DVDs of the performance as a fundraiser for the music program, which will give me some much-needed funding for next year's concerts!
It is a HUGE undertaking, but totally amazing in the long run, so if you have the chance, do try it at your school- the community building alone is worth the stress and hard work!
Thank you to everyone at my school who made this possible for a second year in a row, and to my family and friends for getting me through it in one piece!
Have you done anything similar? I would love to hear about it!! Please comment on this post to share experiences, ideas, or suggestions!
~Ms. Patrician
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