Fifth Graders Combine Art and Music at the Symphony!

Each year fifth graders around the district travel to Holland or Grand Rapids to participate in the Grand Rapid's Symphony's fifth grade concert series. This is a spectacular concert which introduces the students to both modern and classical orchestral pieces.  It is wonderful in reinforcing the music curriculum's study of instruments and families of the orchestra as well.   Students also love the "baseball" style cards of each member of the symphony.  The students love sharing the fun facts they find out about the players like the cellist who likes to play heavy metal on his electric cello, the viola player who's instrument is older than our country, and the violinist who has played more than 3500 performances with the symphony!

At the symphony, students participate in a "SAT" test... the students look nervously at each other until the conductor explains it is the "Symphony Aptitude Test."   Then the brass instruments, strings, woodwinds and percussion each have an opportunity to play and the students in the audience guess which instruments are playing.  This year, the favorites were definitely the cellos and basses which played the "Star Wars" theme! Georgetown students also participated in a unique art opportunity in music class.  For three weeks leading up to the symphony, the fifth graders learned the story of Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite."  The Firebird ballet is based on a fairy tale from Russia involving princesses, a handsome prince, a magical firebird and of course, an evil sorcerer king.  Students drew artwork to go along with one movement of the piece.  They listened to the music while working and had to decide on colors, themes and characters to draw.  The drawings are submitted to the symphony and pictures are chosen from all of the schools attending to be shown while the symphony is playing the piece.  The kids are always so excited to see if their drawings were selected!  Georgetown had 34 lucky students this year who saw their pictures up on the big screen!   What a great way to combine the fine arts with one fantastic field trip!