Everyone knows that making music is fun, but music education also provides a myriad of benefits to your brain, physical and mental health, and overall general well- being. That’s why Melinda Bray and Heather Bell, teachers at Hilton Head Island Elementary School for the Creative Arts, wanted to enhance student engagement and help foster a love for music among their students. Thanks to support from the Bargain
Box of Hilton Head Island and a grant from the Foundation, their project "Creative
Keys: Playing and Composing Music" was brought to life in March 2024.
The grant helped to support Hilton Head Island Elementary School for the Creative Arts’ mission of being an “Arts Integrated program that creates a learning environment using state and national standards in Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Theatre, Creative Writing and Multimedia Technology to promote meaningful connections between the curriculum, the children and the world around them.”
The project, primarily aimed at fifth grade students, has provided each student with a personal workspace that exists within the larger classroom. Each space is equipped with a personal keyboard (replacing their computer devices for music creation and recreation), a keyboard stand, headphones, and a music display.
These musical workspaces have given the students the opportunity to learn to navigate the keyboard, explore different timbres offered by synthesizer options, and apply their reading of the staff using the keyboard. In addition, students have experimented with composing short melodies inspired by a Spring themed poem. They were provided with a planning worksheet to record their musical choices and ideas inspired by the poem.
With a goal of making music education more fun and interactive for the students, they have applied their understanding of the treble staff by playing "name that tune;" on their keyboards. And Ms. Bray and Ms. Bell believe that this activity has helped to
significantly improve the students’ musical literacy.
The project has had the most significant impact on student engagement. By focusing on their own keyboards in a private manner with the use of headphones, students are actively working and applying their understanding of musical concepts more intently.
While the project is still in its early stages, the Ms. Bray and Ms. Bell believe that its long-term impact is quite promising. The keyboards will provide lasting benefits for several years in the future at Hilton Head Island Elementary School for Creative Arts. The teachers look forward to starting the project at the beginning of the school year in 2024 which will allow for ample time to integrate it with other areas of study, such as theatre - including scene work and transitional music.
Student engagement is truly the key to learning. Engagement leads to students having the opportunity to be creative and actually enjoy what they are learning by applying it firsthand! Thanks to support from the Bargain Box of Hilton Head Island and the grant from the Foundation, this project has provided the perfect instrument for future growth in these students’ musical journey!
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