Category Archives: Other

Is your child interested in learning to play a stringed instrument such as the violin, viola, cello, or bass?  Instruction in these instruments is not currently part of the BSD curricular program, but after-school group classes are offered by Southwest Music School at four BSD Elementary School sites: McKay, Oak Hills, Ridgewood, and Hiteon.  Click for more information: http://www.swmusicschool.org.

Experience the magnified sound of *250 tubas* playing together at Pioneer Courthouse Square at 1:30-3:00pm on Saturday, December 12th in downtown Portland.  This seasonal performance is FREE for the public.

See more at: http://thesquarepdx.org/event/25th-annual-tuba-christmas-concert-presented-by-smartpark/#sthash.eufUmEJR.dpuf

Our visiting artist, Fred Sautter (former principal trumpeter with the Oregon Symphony), selected this song as a special project for the 4th graders’ concert on December 10th!  The students will perform an arrangement of the piece on percussion instruments with an improvised “jungle” introduction and singing in 2-part harmony.  Oh—and they’ll also be dancing the Frevo!

It’s finally here!  The guitar rack we ordered about six weeks ago has made its way across the country to our school.  We owe a BIG thank you to Cindy Stiteler and the Siegel Foundation for granting us the funds to purchase the guitar rack, and special thanks to the Fir Grove PTO (especially Sarah Scott and Rhonda McCall) for carefully servicing the funds to ensure a smooth transaction.

What an improvement!  Everything is so neat and organized now.  The neat-freak in Mrs. Colett is jumping for joy.

This is what it looked like before: TOO MESSY!  And there was nowhere for anyone to sit at the back of the room while waiting for their turn on the xylophones.

Mrs. Colett’s father, Steve Mohr, is our guitar hero for helping us assemble the rack.  All the students noticed how handsome it looked on display at the back of the classroom this week.  So exciting!!!  Thanks again, Dad!

The cart is a beautiful way to store, transport, and display our valuable classroom set of acoustic guitars and the 4th graders will be using it at their Dec 11th concert!  Come on over to the Fir Grove gym at 6:30 PM that night to Oooh! and Ahhh! at our fabulous student performances and take a gander at the new guitar rack in person!

Our collection of guitars includes 13 fairly new instruments on permanent loan to us from Mountain View middle school.  A warm thank you to new MVMS Choir Director, Jessica McKeirnan, and Principal, Claudia Ruff, for helping arrange the loan last month.  It’s so nice to have a complete set of matching guitars to make learning more straightforward and harmonious.

Our awesome guitars are ready for Fir Grove 4th and 5th graders to JAM OUT!!!