Mimi Herman at Forestville Road: 4/3/2017

Mimi Herman will be at Forestville Road on Monday, April 3rd, 2017 to conduct a poetry workshop for our 4th grade students.  The purposes of her workshops are to develop students’ abilities to use the techniques of poetry and to improve writing across the curriculum. She will be working to develop their understanding of imagery, line breaks, and stanza breaks.  They will also learn to use the “writer’s movie camera,” which records images using all five senses. Lastly, she will help students learn to translate personal experience and imagination into the writing of poetry. We are looking forward to having Mimi here at Forestville!

Number Drummer Workshop

Today I attended a Number Drummer workshop at the United Arts Council's office located in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.  Troy Kryzalka provided teachers with many tools to help them use music to teach mathematical concepts related to counting, multiplication, division, addition, money, patterns, skip counting, fractions, probability, ratios, and algebra.  I am looking forward to sharing these strategies with the students of Forestville in the future.

Percussion Ensemble

Students in our 4th and 5th grade percussion ensemble have been working hard to prepare for our upcoming spring concert on Thursday, May 4th, 2017 at 7 p.m.  Members of this ensemble have been practicing bucket accompaniments to arrangements of various popular songs.  Below you can see pictures of students practicing at one of our weekly rehearsals.

4th Grade: Recorders

Our 4th graders have been learning how to play the song "Hot Cross Buns" on recorder in music class. To practice at home, students can watch this video.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Music of the Civil Rights Movement

During these days surrounding the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, students have been learning about music of the American civil rights movement and how spirituals played an influential role in uniting people for the cause of fighting inequality in the United States.  Students in grades K-5 have been singing songs featured in the Spotlight on Music textbook series that are dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. and his contributions to society.  Some of the spirituals that students performed, discussed, and analyzed are "Down By the Riverside", "I'm on My Way", and "We Shall Overcome".  An arrangement of the well-known spiritual, "We Shall Overcome", is featured in the video below.  We hope that everyone at Forestville has a great MLK holiday on the 16th as they celebrate the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Wendell Middle School Band Visit

On Tuesday, December 19th, 2016, the Wendell Middle School Band came to perform for our 5th graders.  They skillfully played many holiday selections and our students thoroughly enjoyed the performance. Our 5th graders also got a sneak peak of the Wendell Middle School fight song that many of them will learn when they attend Wendell Middle next year.   We were extremely excited to see FRES alumni performing in the band with Mrs. Slade.  Mrs. Slade is doing a phenomenal job of producing distinguished performers at Wendell Middle and we are grateful that they took the time to stop by and provide us with holiday entertainment.  We are looking forward to their visit next year!

Winter Concert: December 8th, 2016

Snowflake Costumes

Last night, the music department at our school performed the musical Flakes by John Jacobson and John Higgins.  Performances were given by our 2nd, 4th, and 5th grade chorus, percussion ensemble, recorder ensemble, and 4th grade dance troupe. A solo performance was given by Angelinee Venegas-Mejia and our chorus performed an original composition by Lauren Comer. We would like to thank the 2nd grade teachers and teacher assistants for assisting with rehearsals and the performance, Ms. Lyn Riggs for making the costumes and the stage background, the custodial staff for setting up equipment for the event, the FRES stage crew, and Mrs. Sharon Hart for filming a winter weather report that was used to introduce the show in our WFAL studios.  These people helped us put on a wonderful production.  Here you can see pictures of the recorder ensemble, chorus, and percussion ensemble. You can also see pictures of Lauren Comer, our student composer who was featured on the concert and Angelinee Venegas-Mejia, our guest student soloist.  There are also pictures of the stage background (above) and our snowflake costumes.  We are looking forward to putting on a great spring concert!

Snowflake Costumes

4th and 5th Grade Chorus Members

Chorus, Recorder Ensemble, and Percussion Ensemble Members

Percussion and Recorder Ensemble Members

Lauren Comer, Student Composer

Angelinee Venegas-Mejia, Soloist

Chorus and Dance Troupe Members

Recorder Ensemble Members