Education United States Project #11868

Lift Hearts and Shape Young Minds Through Music

by Guitars in the Classroom

Lift Hearts and Shape Young Minds Through Music

Project Report | May 27, 2014
Thanks to You, Children are Strumming & Singing!

By Jessica Baron | Executive Director

Head Start Teachers in Worcester, MA

Dear Friend of Guitars in the Classroom,

Thank you for caring about the well-being & education of children so much. Your generous contribution to this campaign focused on music for children in preschool and primary grades has made a fantastic difference for them ever since its inception last year. Now, thanks to you and everyone who pitched in, we have reached our goal together.

The next microproject will focus on young children acquiring English as a second language with our AMIGO Project so please keep an eye open!

For now please know that students and teachers in some of the roughest areas of Los Angeles are making music every week with instruments your charity provided. In Oxnard, too! And Head Start teachers in Mississippi and Alabama have not only carried on, but are starting up in 2 new locations! We have completed our teacher training in Mililani, Hawaii and the teachers have instruments to keep using in their classrooms. And as of last week, kindergarden teachers in Beaufort, South Carolina started training with master teacher Joan Maute!Ukes are on their way to their classrooms! Head Start Teachers in Worcester, Massachusetts are also completing their year of training with our amazing trainer, Jon Short.

You can actually hear Jon's music (he is a GREAT Blues player) here on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJSIQ3SaKiY. This song about the Asian Long Horned Beetle proves our point that you can write a song about ANYTHING and it will teach you a lesson that really sticks.

In addition, we will begin training teachers in 5 summer intensives in the San Diego area- teachers are welcome to come from everywhere to study with us for a week. You can learn about those trainings,here: http://www.guitarsintheclassroom.org/2014/05/summer-intensives-coming/.

Do you know a teacher who wants to learn to lead the way and teach through music? Please pass along our information. We are teaching on a donation basis, as always, and the doors are wide open! No experience is necessary and the teacher will receive everything the need to get started including a guitar and a ukulele. This is how we spread the magic and learning.

In all, this microproject has helped us train over 120 teachers, place 160 ukuleles in classrooms, and is reaching a thousand children each week with daily musical learning in every subject area. Whether children are learning their colors, numbers, letters and weather through song or singing about friendship, the environment or family, their teachers are leading the way, helping them keep time, sing in tune, create new words, and blend their voices in song all because of you!

If you want to feel the love that goes into a GITC class, please treat yourself to the music of our trainer, Joan Maute, an expert songwriter and singer whose work in the schools spans more than 30 years! Here at her website, you have access to many of her compositions. http://www.joanmaute.com/ Joan has personally trained hundreds of teachers in South Carolina, Georgia, Massachusetts and San Diego through her service with Guitars in the Classroom! We are all very grateful to her for sharing her passion for music and education with teachers and children through this organization.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your effort to make the world a positive place for kids whether they live in the South, the East, or near the CA border,or an island in the Pacific. They are all ours and they need and appreciate our love and care so much. And you are there for them.

Let's keep the music going together in new places!

Wishing you health, peace, inspiration and abundance,

Jess

Teachers in Beaufort, SC

Teachers in City Heights, San Diego

Teachers in South Carolina at GITC Class

Links:

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Mar 3, 2014
Music for Preschools in Mississippi and Alabama!

By Jessica Baron | Executive Director

Together we can make a difference!

Hello, Friend,I am so excited to tell you the latest news. Since you have been helping out GITC, we have been able to really move forward on our work with young children. The gift you gave was part of a massive push to get more music into early childhood and primary grade classrooms.

We recently got some help from a special friend, pianist and guitarist George Winston. He gave our efforts an added boost with a concert on February 12th in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. People came from all over the two states where we are serving to hear George and learn about GITC and the demand for more trainings skyrocketed in a night. More schools signed on, and now we want more than ever to be able to supply everyone with trainings and instruments.

Next week, classes begin for teachers and their children at Leona B. Warren HeadStart, in Mobile, Alabama! And in another week, we start up at Taconi Head Start in Ocean Springs. We are working on getting something going in Hattiesburg, too.

And up in Worcester, Massachusetts the early childhood educators are rocking and playing slide guitar with trainer Jon Short, writing all kinds of songs for learning. In Lansing, Michigan, they are learning to play guitar and ukulele with trainer Ben Hassenger. In Victorville, they are studying with Marion Davison. And the beat goes on and on.

Thank you for helping us make an enormous difference for children during their most impressionable years when music can help them learn everything with greater ease and joy and set them on a positive path in school. Your love is making up for what so many public schools cannot afford to provide, and would not be able to implement on their own. Innovation takes advocates and you are right here with us, trumpeting the cause of music for learning every day.

With gratitude in my heart for your kindness and solidarity,

Jess

preschool music in MS Head Start

Links:

GITC on Fox 5 News!

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Dec 24, 2013
Happier Holidays with Music in Their Lives!

By Jessica Baron | Executive Director

Hampton Virginia GITC

Dear Supporter,

This is a quick note of thanks to let you know how your donations to this project are making the holidays a happier time for children around the United States and Canada this year. Because you gave us the energy and funds to keep going, GITC has been able to:

Train and support 225 pK- 8 teachers to learn to lead music in their classrooms this fall!
Donate or loan instruments to programs in 86 schools from California to Boston, from Michigan to Ontario.
Bring songs and songwriting for learning to the hearts and minds of 19,000 students each day
Continue to restore Bluegrass musical traditions in the schools in Clay County, West Virgina
Make hands-on guitar and ukulele training possible for children and adults with extreme disabilities through teriinc.org
Give high school students wishing to perform community service through music a way to assist younger children by participating in our work.

What is in store for 2014 through this project?

For starters, in Head Start programs in Massachusetts, our trainer Jon Short will begin teaching music leadership to early childhood educators in January. In elementary schools in Burlington, Vermont, trainer Rik Palieri will continue the training he started last year, expanding his efforts to nearby communities as well. In Oakland and Berkeley, California , two new GITC trainers will reach out to K-8 educators new to this approach through the public schools. And this is just the beginning- so many more programs are on the horizon in February. We also have an exciting plan moving forward that involves more community concerts that bring the children and teachers together with community members to make music in public spaces, giving music a presence in the daily life of people outside the school walls. We just led the first public GITC community jam in San Diego 2 weeks ago and facilitated two holiday sing alongs at the public library in Encinitas, CA. Folks really came out to be a part of these events with the children.

Guitars in the Classroom wants to wish you very happy holidays and the most joyous of New Years.

On behalf of the teachers and students in Hampton, Virginia, in Oxnard and Vista, California and all across the nation wherever there is a GITC program thanks to you, we hope your kindness comes back to you multiplied many times over. The love you give is making life better for thousands of children whose chances for success in school are improving because you choose care. Thank you for your blessings.

Please stay with us, be a part of this musical connection and help more children and people of every age find their voices, passion and inspiration together through sharing the power of song!

Let there be peace,

Jess

Oxnard, CA GITC

Vista, California GITC~

Bus Driving GITC in Clay WV!

Links:

Article on Donation of Ukuleles to GITC Programs

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