Beginning Band for Elementary School

School:: Laurel Oak Elementary
Subject:: Music
Teacher:: Austin Gomez
: Ryan Sickles, Sophia O'Neill
Students Impacted:: 196
Grade:: K-5
Date:: August 6, 2023

Investor

Thank you to the following investor for funding this grant.

A Champion For Learning - $1,995.00

Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 205

The 5th grade students were overwhelmingly eager to try an wind instrument! It was fun to watch their excitement on day 1, it was like Christmas morning! It was especially neat to see and hear those who thought it would be easy and quickly realized it was not. Same for the opposite; some kids were really surprised that they were able to easily make a good sound in relation to the rest of the class and had no prior musical instruction. The first few days were chaotic as we have very large classes. But after a couple of weeks, we broke the kids up into groups and we held sectionals in the cafeteria to give them some one on one and some quiet to hear themselves make a sound. The vast majority of the kids really got into learning the basics like how to put the instrument together, hold it properly, breathing the right way and shaping their face approprietly. The biggest limitation honestly, was just not having enough instruments to go around or to give kids the variety to try different instruments. However, it was well worth the effort to have them experience a wind instrument to get them excited and experienced for music in middle school.

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Original Grant Overview

Goal

The goal of this grant is to provide a fun, effective way for students to make music in the classroom and prepared them for music making in middle and high school and beyond. These Nuvo instruments introduce students to the band world and offer a super fun and inventive way to learn wind instruments and give them a huge head start in proper posture, technique, emboucher, sound production and fingerings.

What will be done with my students

The students (likely 3rd-5th) will create a classroom wind band which will give them an opportunity to explore and sample the different instruments of the wind orchestra. Students meet once a week for 50 minutes and each class will play through a rotation of flutes, clarinets, sax and horn. By having an early experience with these instruments, they will be much better equipped to make the decision to continue with band in their middle and high schools and will also have them go in as excelling students, already trained in the basics of making good sounds on their instruments.

Benefits to my students

These instruments allow our upper grade students to feel more connected to their musical path through school and gets the excited about band and music making in general. The sooner and the better they can get at making actual music, the much higher their likelihood to continue music not only in school but to become life long music makers, music lovers and even professional symphony musicians! We have the largest student body elementary school in the county and it would be a fantastic opportunity to bring real music to the masses!

Budget Narrative

The NUVO instruments were created in 2008 and have since gained a massive following. Their reputation has proven them to be durable and highly effective in sound quality and accessibility. These instruments can go on to teach many LOE music students for years to come. I have been teaching at this level now for 20 years and these are the best marriage between the contemporary elementary music student and what they look to achieve musically throughout their schooling. I'd love to be a part of that process for them.

Items

#	Item	Cost
1	(10)NUVO Toot 2.0 White/Blue	$300.00
2	(10) NUVO Dood 2.0 White/Blue	$300.00
3	(5) NUVO Jsax 2.0 White/Blue	$500.00
4	(5) NUVO Jhorn 2.0 White Blue	$745.00
5	NUVO Windstar Method Books/Teacher Score	$150.00
	Total:	$1,995.00

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