Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Fourth Grade Informance

Each year the different classes in Jake's school have an "Informance".  Instead of a traditional program involving the whole grade one night, each separate class gives a little performance during their regular music time at school.  It's a much smaller setting and, according to the teacher, they get to work harder with each class and they learn more.

Jake's Informance was last week.  I think the "Info" part comes because the music teacher generally discusses a little history behind the songs they are singing or why/how the kids are learning the songs.  Jake's class learned 13 songs and this year the songs all centered around patriotic, folk music and spirituals.  I'm so glad that this teacher feels strongly that these should be learned.  I think it's sad when one of my piano students goes to play a song like "Oh, Susanna" and has never heard it before.

What I also like is that the kids are encouraged to dress up a little more than normal.  I think this is important in any performance as well so I'm definitely on board with that!

Jake is too...this little man loves to wear ties!  He thought he'd wear his suit for the day, but decided the night before to forgo the jacket.  That morning I caught this pic...it made me realize how fast he's growing up!


Before I know it, that will be a phone in his hand.

I do have to say, Jake was not thrilled with having to wear his "church shoes".  He said they were getting too small and he was going to wear his black tennis shoes with the red shoelaces.  So. Not. Happening.  He was allowed to bring clothes to school to change into (including shoes) after his performance, but he was wearing his dress shoes. The End. Maybe now he'll finally agree to go shoe shopping with me!

The performance was great.  The mix of songs were a lot of fun and Man!...those kids had to learn a LOT of words!


It's always fun to see the kids get excited about some of the songs they are performing.  They were all a little nervous beforehand and excited afterward to have a successful performance behind them!

1 comment:

Grandpa said...

It was a great performance, I'm always amazed at how many songs the kids know by heart. The other neat thing is that the kids looked like they enjoyed singing the songs.