Chimes

I was told when I took my music teaching job to expect resistance from the junior high crowd. (And no, it wasn't a warning about my particular junior high group, but just a warning about the age group altogether.) While I was expecting resistance and daily battles, I've had surprisingly few. When I was digging through the closets in the music room, I found a 3-octave set of hand chimes. The previous music teacher knew they were there and pointed them out to me, but she also told me that most of them were broken. As it turns out, very few of the chimes were actually broken (3 had to be replaced) and the set was is pretty good condition. At that point, I decided to turn my junior high music groups into bell choirs...and the response has been amazing! The kids are actually enjoying music class (to the point of begging not to be pulled out of music to go finish math tests!) and they're learning a lot about reading and playing music. One of my groups played an arrangement of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" in church today. They did really well, they were very proud of themselves, and they managed to earn root beer floats as well....