Dragon Dispatches: April Adventures in Turning Up the Beat to Teaching Our Beebots to Count

Turn Up the Beat! Third Grade Makes (Makey Makey) Music!

Our third graders are immersed in a cool cross-curricular project combining what they are learning In Makers Lab and Music! After exploring how electricity moves (including circuits, conductivity, and polarity), they split up into bands and selected what instrument they wanted to play. But not just any instruments — these are instruments they engineered out of Makers materials such as cardboard, boxes, markers, and so on.

After building their instruments, they created their circuit by adding conductive materials to the instruments and wiring them onto Makey Makey boards. (For those that don't know what Makey Makey boards do, they allow for inputs on their Chromebook to be controlled outside of the computer.) By using these boards and a program developed by Makey Makey to play sounds via circuits and inputs connected to their Chromebooks, the instruments were then wired up to play music notes!

They are now using these instruments in Music class to compose original songs with their bands! They’re currently notating their compositions so they can read them back, rehearse, and perform their work. The final result? A concert with all of the bands and their original masterpieces! 

High-fives to our Third Grade Maker-Musicians for their creativity and kudos to LS Makers Teacher & Academic Technology Integrator Ms. Nguyen and LS Music Teacher Mr. Tim for this awesome cross-curricular project!

Middle Schoolers Rock the Boulevard with their Annual Speyer Idol!

In April, it was time for one of the most beloved and entertaining Middle School events: Speyer Idol! As part of their Middle School music curriculum, each class selects a song, works on the arrangement, and rehearses in order to compete in a proper head-to-head musical contest – complete with judges and crowd input!

This year, the judging panel consisted of Mr. Jameson, Ms. Funk, and Mr. Levin (each play a "role" akin to the judges on the real American Idol show), and we had a special host: DJ DB (Mr. Benedek)! All of the classes brought their enthusiasm and energy...the performances were quite memorable (to say the least). This year's songs included a wide range of genres — "Yellow," "Rise Up," "My Way," and "Country Road" are just a few of the tunes we heard!

Special shout-out to the winners: Rise Up in Sixth Grade, who were selected as the group that demonstrated the best teamwork; My Way in Seventh Grade, who was voted the most entertaining group; and Iris in Eighth Grade, who won best performance!! 

Spotted in the Dining Hall: The Annual PA International Potluck and Game Night!

Our Speyer community gathered in the Dining Hall for one of the oldest Speyer traditions: the Annual PA International Potluck! It was a fabulous night, with delicious food, fun games and activities, and lots of laughter! Thank you to everyone who brought food and enjoyed the games — and a special shout-out to our amazing PA Leadership and volunteers as well as our Speyer's Security and Facilities Teams for helping with organizing, set-up, and clean-up! See you next year! GO DRAGONS! 

Speyer Welcomes the President of the Geena Davis Institute!

It was a wonderful event, as Speyer welcomed Madeline Di Nonno from the Geena Davis Institute (GDI)! The GDI has a mission to champion equitable representation of women and girls in media, aiming to reinvent, transform, and inspire how global content creators and media tell stories through authentic portrayals of the population in entertainment. Hosted by the Speyer Parents of Girls Affinity Group and open to all families in the Speyer community, it was an inspiring and informative gathering! Thanks to everyone who made this event happen!

The Beebots need your help learning to count!

Help! The Beebots need to learn to count to 10 but only speak the Beebot language! Are you up to the challenge?

Our first graders were! In Makers, our First Grade students are learning about sequences and code. In order to help the Beebots learn to count, they first need to learn the Beebot language: sequencing! As part of their second coding lesson of the year, students helped the Beebots count to ten by planning the route the Beebot took through a sequence of directional steps.

Don’t worry, all our Beebots learned to count to 10!