My students decorated concert invitations by drawing themselves on stage – visualizing the upcoming performance helps them to prepare. I love that I’m the one in glasses saying, “I believe in you!”

I am so proud of my grade 7/8s. They chose “Scars to Your Beautiful” from the CBC Music Class competition list and we arranged it for voice, ukuleles, keyboard, and Cuban/Brazilian drums (thank you TDSB Arts Department!). We rehearsed until we became quite tired of the piece but the day of our video recording it was the students who said, “let’s do another take Ms Fraser, we can do better.”

I presented, with my esteemed colleagues Mary and Doug, at this year’s OMEA (Ontario Music Educators’ Association)’s conference. Our workshop was on the power of jamming -improvisation/listening games- with students. We had a great turn out!

My K-Grade 1/2s learned all about recording sessions last week and the resulting video was featured at this morning’s Remembrance Day Assembly. Sweet voices!!

Mark your calendars- the evening of Dec. 5th all Jean Lumb students will perform for and with you! K-grade 2 will even be conducting. I’ve set up a Music corner in a Nelson Mandela science room and we’ve made it our temporary home.

This week Jean Lumb students are learning to play ukulele (thanks to a TDSB board instrument loan!), sharing music for their homes, and composing. They’re open to and ready for musical discoveries.

We don’t have our own building or our own music room or our own instruments but we are being thankful for Nelson Mandela School’s generosity and we are making music! Jean Lumb students and staff are lovely- here’s to a great future together!

I just watched a video of our MPP, Bhutila, speaking in the Legislature about why some IRC students and parents fought my surplussed job and it broke my heart. I didn’t want to leave but I had to apply, and I got another great music job at TDSB’s new school, Jean Lumb. Pictures above are of my first K class at IRC (I’ll be back to see you graduate!!), dancing it out together in rm 210, and tearful hugs on the last day. Take care of your musical and creative hearts, my IRC students!!!

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My K students and I worked so hard to compose and record these Blues songs, I hope you love them as much as we do (the lyrics!!!).

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IRC grade 1-3s composed their own jazz heads and took turns soloing with our rhythm section.

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At our Spring Concert, IRC’s Grade 4-6 class and Guitar Club got to perform Jazz Standards with the Jazz FM91 Seminar Big Band!

Kids love composing using GarageBand-adults too. This year we studied Soundscapes and made audio recordings around IRC (the Boiler Room sounds were pretty cool) to then add into our creations.