5th Grade Band Festival!

At the end of April, the fifth graders got a fun treat for band...a full day Band Festival at the middle school they would be attending next year! Annabel was very excited for this for so many reasons, which was awesome. I even got to chaperone, too!!

I was among five parents from our school to chaperone, complete with taking attendance at the elementary, getting the kids in groups, riding the bus, documenting seats (for close contact tracing and all that new COVID jazz- oh how times have changed!), and herding the kids in the building and all. Once at the middle school, the band team pretty much took over the kids' part of the day- starting with snack and the moving into three different mini "band clinics" which was basically instruction from each of three band directors (Mr. Silder from the elementary, Mrs. McCann- the 6th and 8th grade director, and the 7th grade director Dr. Carroll) in smaller instrument groupings. The incoming band is HUGE, I have to tell you. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming years for Annabel and even the band directors.

While the kids were off having a blast basically playing music all morning long, the parents had the fun pleasure of setting up hundreds of chairs for the full band practice that would follow lunch shortly in preparation for that night's concert. Like I said, it's a huge group, so we had a map of how the chairs should go, with how many in each row as well as the names to label the chairs. Lots of work and had I known I would be sweating like crazy, I might just have worn something different, haha. But really, I was so glad to be of great help and it was a lot of fun. Mrs. McCann was so very appreciative of all the parents' help, it was so sweet. We ate lunch with the kids and then got to listen to their rehearsal for the concert that night. After a couple hours of that (I said it was a full day of playing music!), it was back to the bus and back to school to get ready to go home. Busy day and so much fun! Annabel loved every minute of it! She was flying high when she got home!

Mr. Silder thought it would be fun to have a slide show that night of the day's pictures, so the chaperones all took tons of pictures throughout the day and then shared them with me and I made the slide show and sent it off to Mr. Silder by mid-afternoon. It was so fun to see it on the big screen that night at the concert. It really was a fun day for the kids and one they'll remember.

The concert was wonderful! We got to hear from the 5th grade band and the 8th grade band, as well as the 8th grade Jazz Ensemble. So fun to hear how the 8th grade band sounds and how talented they are. Our family celebrated afterwards with ice cream at Andy's and Aggie's family even joined us, too. 

Whew- such a fun day! Enjoy the pictures!

On our way to the middle school!

Waving hi to Mr. Silder via photo!

Group picture outside the middle school!

Snack time.

Mini-clinics.

Even Daniel was spotted helping with the mini-clinics! (Each grade level got their turn to play with the 5th grade during their normal band hour.)

Lunch time!

Full band rehearsal time!

Ready to head out...but first a few pictures...

This next picture is our elementary school's band plus the other elementary school's band- a big group for next year!

Heading back to school!

Annabel shows us her certificate at the band concert that night!

Ready for her last concert as a 5th grader!!

Annabel just LOVES band- she's so proud of playing and loves the music and everything- I love her smile!

Annabel and Aggie!

And Mr. Silder, too! He was an amazing band teacher and we're going to really miss him!

Celebrating with Andy's ice cream- yum!!!