Parents: This heart wrenchingly sad video was shared with your students today in class. It is an epidemic seen in band rooms across America and we must end it! Please encourage your child to be and angel to a neglected instrument and bring it home to practice each night!! On a serious note-- I have seen a pretty serious lack of home practice by many students this semester. For the Wind Ensemble students, this means there are some that still can not play portions of the repertoire we are performing next week, and so rehearsals have been a real drag lately. Boo. For a faction of students in each band this means many are falling behind in completing Smart Music assignments. I gave them a very generous extension on the scale assignments (from October 31 to January 19). However, each class also has two repertoire assignments that were assigned in mid-September that are due tomorrow afternoon. There is a timer that shows me how long the student spends working on each excerpt before submitting. For the freshmen, those that have completed them have spent about a minute recording each excerpt. For Symphony Band its about a minute on one assignment and three minutes on the other. For Wind Ensemble its about a minute on one assignment and five minutes on the other. These times indicate that the student practiced the excerpt at home and came to class ready to record and submit the assignment. Since the students have had two months to work on these two excerpts and they take just minutes to complete, I will not be offering an extension. I will, however, always accept late assignments at a reduced grade. Each day I post how late I will be at school so students know how long the band room will be open for practice, help, or testing. I am here at least until 4:00 almost every day and often later than that. Since many students wait until the last minute to turn in assignments, I do post an after school iPad sign out sheet the week assignments are due (there is almost never a wait any other week). You can also download Smartmusic and practice and submit assignments from home for a little over $3/month. If you wish to use your student account to pay for this just bring in your receipt for reimbursement. I am hoping to see a lot of assignments turned in tomorrow because students have just been waiting to turn in their most perfect recording! Grades will be entered into MiStar next week, so you can check to see if your child completed the assignment or not (percussionists do not have repertoire assignments, but will instead have rhythm assignments later). Keep encouraging your kids to practice even just 15 minutes a day. Mastering an instrument can be an arduous process but the rewards are so worth it! https://youtube/watch?v=s3d0f8GoQhY
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 21:16:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015