Last night of SUMMER!!!

well tonight is the last night of summer!! tomorrow is the first day for students.

Compared to the last two years.... i am so ready for tomorrow!! I have my handbooks printed and lesson plans done! Bring on the Students!

the last week we have been doing teacher trainings. we got new email and new gradebooks. and we have a new band teacher at my school. so while i have been getting my room ready i have been making sure he is settled in and answering all the questions i forgot people don't know at a new school.

So needless to say i am WAY excited to have students coming tomorrow morning.

tomorrow we have advisory for 120 min! then only 35 min in my regular classes!

So here is to a good school year!! I hope it all goes as planned! (fingers crossed)

A CLEAN SLATE

So I can't seem to stay on track! Today I went to school to print some stuff and to start setting up my room. I also bought a new book shelf that of course is assembly required. But does that mean that I got ANYTHING done? NO!!!! of course not!

I went to school and spent 3 hours talking to people! I know you have to get all the "How was your summer" conversations out of the way. School is only open till 3 so I went home and decided that I was going to clean. I thought that starting the school year with a clean apartment was a good idea. I am on a streak and decided to take a breather.

Now I cant decide weather I go into school tomorrow morning or stay and clean!! decisions decisions. Wish me luck with both!!!

6 days till teachers report
13 till STUDENTS!!!

Time to get ready for school

OK well today we closed "the Wizard of Oz"!! It was a great show and the kids did a FANTASTIC Job! I was so proud of the work they did in only 5 weeks of rehearsals. I am someone who takes my job very seriously, and I do believe that I am my biggest critic of my own work. So when people I look up to in the field and people who work in the business tell me that it is one of the best children's performance they have ever seen in carson.... I take that as a HUGE compliment.  NOW on to the next show!!!

So now I have one week before I have to report to school, then a week of meetings and kids come back the following week. This is when my brain starts buzzing with how much I DIDN'T get done over the summer. one major thing I planed to get done and didn't was my music library. I made a dent in it but not nearly as much as I wanted. I guess that means I have to continue it into my school year. =( So here is what I am doing and why.... 

I have been teaching at my current school for two years. My first year I got the position a week before school started. So music selection was pretty much what I could find that sounded ok. The next year I got to spend some more time looking through music and found that I actually had quite a bit of decent music, BUT it was not organized at all. The music wasn't written down at all and some of it wasn't even in alphabetical order or was in the wrong cabinet (suppose to be in christmas SA and is in secular SSA). Lets just say it was a headache to fine anything. 

So here is what I am doing with it...... 

First i am bringing home milk cartons full of music folders.  

I then Number each piece of music, stamp it with a CMS Music stamp (which includes the school address) and a Music Library number (which corresponds to an excel worksheet). 

 

Students will get a packet that has all the same number in them. This number will then match a music folder where they can keep all of their music and handouts for class. 

The Stamp i had custom made from Office Depot. This is great if you lend music out to other schools. 

Th Number stamp is just a 6 digit number stamp from office depot. I put a 1 at the begining of Choral music, 2 for Handbells, 3 Strings (which i am not teaching this year). 

The number, name and part split gets put on the folder. For example in this picture: 

Title - One Candle Lights the Way

Number - 100094

Part - SA 

I then put the last time it was performed on the outside cover. This is for me to gage when we should do it again. Because my school is 6th, 7th, 8th graders I want to try to not do the same pieces till after the 6th graders are 9th graders (3 years). 

Last I then enter information into an excel document (sorry no picture). I have the following tittles/ categories. 

Number/title/composer/voice part/season/ instrumentation/ publisher/ Publish #/Last performed. 

Example (not real entry): 

100096/ One Voice/ Arr. john Smith/ 2 part-SA/Secular/ Piano & Flute/ Alfred/ NS003/ Nov-2012

Ideally i should be able to sort by season , then by voice part, and then by alphabetically. I then can re organize my cabinets to know where each folder is. Then if someone asks for a song or i need to find something quickly i can search the Library spreadsheet and find exactly where it is. Thats the idea at least.

well i guess i will have to tell you if it actually works how i want it to when i finish. for now i am still entering into the database! 

Oh and i also am teaching a new music appreciation/ history class. more to come on that! 

How about a Music Quote to end my rambling 

We're off to see the Wizard!!!

well opening weekend is over and it was a great weekend. It was stressful as it always is, but to see those 40 kids up on that stage smiling and having a good time, it makes it all worth it.

Off to See the Wizard!......

One of my projects keeping me busy this summer is being the Musical Director of "The Wizard of Oz." I have directed kids shows for the past 4-5 years so its not a big stretch. There are a couple of differences this time around though... we used to do shows in a Black box or a small proscenium theater. The Black Box sat about 150 people and it is literally a black room so we are limited to what we can do set wise and instrumentalist wise. The theater was an old church converted to a theater. This theater seats about 200 people with a small overflow area. I would much rather be in the old church but we didn't always get our choice. Lights are always limited and sound systems are pretty much an ipod or a CD player, nothing else.

This summer we started a new Theater company Youth Theater Carson City . This company is performing out of the local Community Center. This theater is a full functioning proscenium theater seating over 700 people!! Now i don't think that we can fill this theater and pack the house but its a nice thought. We also have access to so much more then before. We can fly out set pieces, we have wings that they can enter from, spotlights, lots of lights, full working sound system, AND wireless microphones! We have never had the option of using microphones in a show let alone wireless ones. We also will be using overhead and floor microphones.

I am really excited for the kids to get this opportunity to perform on this stage. For most of them this is the biggest stage they have performed on. I grew up performing on this stage. I performed with the local Community College and still do. They do all of their performances at this theater. Most of the students i have in the group have seen performances at this theater but never thought they would get to perform on this size of a stage.

So to get ready for the show i have been working on music, going to rehearsals, and working on costumes. I have so many green sequins around my house its not even funny!! But it will all be worth it in the next couple weeks. There will be 40+ children singing and dancing up on this stage with smiles on their faces and loving performing. That is worth it!!



oh we also have a touring group that performs around the community, at various activities around town. here is a picture of the SHOWSTOPPERS (their group name) performing at the Carson City Relay for Life event last weekend!!

Summer Vacation... whats that?

ok so it is about a month into summer vacation and i have never been busier!! This is the first summer that i have not had a job during the break. So what do i do? FILL IT!! I have many projects going on and i will hopefully post individual posts to go into more depth about each of them, but here is just a preview of what has gone on and what i have planed for the rest of my summer vacation! My vacation started right out of the gate with going to visit my brother in Huston Texas. He has been going to college near there and i had yet to get to visit. My brother and i are 4 years a part and pretty close so 6 months of not seeing each other wasn't working with either of us. He is attending Prairie View A&M and his baseball team made it to the NCAA regional playoffs in Texas. This is a huge thing in baseball and our family is BIG in to baseball. So my parents and i flew out to watch him play at Rice College, and even play agains the Rice Owels. Unfortunately they where out of the tournament in 2 games, but it was nice to see him play and see where he lived. I then spent 24 hours in a car driving back to NV with my brother. When i got home i jumped into cleaning and purging my school classroom from the year. Though i have been teaching at my school for two years now i didn't get a chance last summer, due to a summer job, to clean out the last teachers files/ organize the room to my liking. SO i moved some things around and cleaned out some cabinets that REALLY needed it. One Project i have started this summer, and fingers crossed will finish in the next couple months before school. I am cataloging all of my music in the choral library. The choir program at my school is substantial and has a nice size library for a middle school, BUT nothing is written down. Thats right i decided it was time to get organized. This project of course sounded like a good idea in June and now a month into it.... i will be glad to get through christmas!! (but more to come on that later) My other large project is Music Directing a "The Wizard of Oz". For the past five years or so i have been a Musical Director of a local kids theater program, working with a close friend as the Creative Director and the Director of the shows. After a fall out with the program we where working with, (building managers and board/ creative team) my friend and i decided to start our own theater company. We have partnered with the local Community Center and started our own Youth Theater company check it out at Youth Theater Carson City . I love working with these kids and they make it so worth giving up my summer to see them glow on stage.Each of these projects is time consuming but are worth it in the end. I also have been looking on Pinterest (my new FAVORITE site) and getting lots of fun ideas for school. I am loving the organization tips and am working on getting organized for the upcoming school year. If you have not checked out Pinterest yet click here and be amazed. Well i guess that is a good update, i am determined to keep on top of this better then the last time i tried to blog about things! 

Bri