By STEPHANIE BUNKER
Moapa Valley Progress
Grant Bowler Elementary fifth graders beamed with American Pride during the Patriotic Program on Wednesday, November 15. The medley of songs about America touched the hearts of the audience both young and old.
“I loved it, it was educational and taught history through music,” said Joy Hull, a parent of a child in the program.
As Bowler principal Shawna Jessen opened the program she made a special effort to recognize many special guests in the audience, recognizing those who make sacrifices for our freedoms.
“This is one of our favorite programs that we get to honor the veterans and let them know how much we appreciate them,” Jessen said. “We also recognize the first responders in our valley and we honor them as much as we can.”
The program began with the Boy Scouts presenting the colors. Afterward each student filed onto the stage wearing red, white, and blue shirts. They began the program with a fun song called “American Heart” that expressed the heartbeat of every American.
A new and special part to the program this year was the narration. Trish Anderson the music teacher and organizer of the program said, “I usually do my own narration but this year Mrs. Delafrance told me about some poems she had her students write about America. I thought that would be perfect in my program.”
The poems were truly a highlight to the program. “The poems are what made this program unique to our school and valley,” said Bowler vice principal Vanessa Solis.
At the end of her poem, Emma Estes stated, “America stands for you and me.”
Another new thing to the Patriotic program was the conga drums. Last year Mrs. Anderson went to the PTO about purchasing the drums. “The PTO came through and purchased these drums so I wanted to demonstrate to them how useful they are,” she said.
A song involving a select number of students was “The Bells of Liberty” played by the Bell Choir. Anderson said that last year her student learning goal for this group of kids was to teach them how to read notes.
“At the end of the year I was amazed at how many knew the notes,” Anderson said. “I chose kids who had the highest scores on note reading and I was just astounded at how many knew the notes as they played the bells!”
The most challenging song that Anderson taught her students was “We Share America.” Most of the song consisted of naming different cities within the country.
“That song was hard for the kids to learn,” said Anderson, “It is plum full of all these different places.”
Since she only has the kids once a week for music class, and had many other things to learn as well, they didn’t get all those lyrics memorized perfectly. So they used a cheat sheet for this song. But the kids still sang it out beautifully.
Anderson was focused on teaching the children about their country and what the Constitution and its Preamble is. Due to the short time she has to work with the students she recruited the teachers’ assistance in helping teach about America.
“I wanted them to understand what they are singing about and have a desire and meaning in their hearts,” Anderson said.
A song that the kids loved and chose was the Star Spangled Banner. Anderson said that as they sang songs throughout the year she would sing several different patriotic songs nationally known and they wanted to learn them. But when she asked which one they wanted to sing for the program they all wanted to sing the Star Spangled Banner.
“I was shocked, that is a hard song with notes all over the place!” Anderson said.
But the kids sang their hearts out as they performed the National Anthem. The fifth grade Boy Scouts retired the flag at the end of the program and the students filed out of the multipurpose room leaving that American spirit in the hearts of the audience.
