The Little Kids Rock music program at Flowery Elementary School offers free instruments to the students.
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Students are rockin’ and rollin’ at Flowery Elementary School, thanks to some very dedicated teachers and a not-for-profit organization called “Little Kids Rock.” Learning music is an integral part of a first-rate education, and the “Little Kids Rock” program supplies free instruments for students and training for teachers. This is the fifth year Flowery School has been able to offer free guitar classes through “Little Kids Rock” to its students who would otherwise not have the opportunity for music education.
However, the free guitar lessons would not be possible without guitar instructors. Four very dedicated teachers from Flowery volunteer to teach third-, fourth- and fifth-graders once a week after school. Krista McAtee and Jan Moore teach third grade, Matt Pope teaches fourth grade and Greg Campbell teaches fifth grade. Despite their already overloaded busy schedules, these teachers take the additional time to plan a wonderful curriculum loaded with popular rhythms kids love such as rock, blues, funk and hip hop. Not only are the students being taught to play the guitar, they are also learning the joys of expressing themselves creatively and building confidence and self-esteem, which ultimately spills over into all areas of academics and life. When the students begin the program, they have to earn their instruments by doing their guitar homework, attending class and being responsible about bringing their guitars to school. At the end of the year, the students get to keep their guitars if they have met these goals.
Flowery Elementary School also offers as part of the regular curriculum percussion classes, which play a significant role in what the students can accomplish in their guitar classes. As a Flowery parent who has a child in the guitar classes, I have seen first hand how inspiring it has been for my son. He walks around the house tapping his chest and snapping his fingers with different rhythms he has learned through his guitar lessons and percussion classes. He has also started to sing while he practices on his guitar, which shows me that he is branching out from his shyness to experimenting all that he is capable of doing.
Flowery is a dual immersion school partnering with the Adele Harrison Middle School dual immersion program to educate children for success in a global society. For more information, go to www.floweryschool.org. For further information on “Little Kids Rock,” go to www.littlekidsrock.org.
