Check out the First Grade Blues Band in the Press!

The First Grade Blues Band and the Kids Like Blues Music Project has been featured in newspapers, TV, and educational websites. Please see the "In the News" section of our website kidslikeblues.org to check it all out. The kids and parents are very proud to share their work with others.

The First Grade Blues Band plays CSU San Marcos Wed. May 9!

First Graders going to college...how cool is that?

On May 9 from 4:00-6:00 pm, the First Grade Blues Band from Garrison Elementary School in Oceanside, CA will perform at Cal State University San Marcos. (Check out the room we'll be rocking in the above photo.)

Members of the CSU College of Education, CSU professors and teaching candidates, Oceanside Unified School District members, student families, and Garrison staff will be part of the audience. KPBS education reporter Kyla Calvert will be on hand with a film crew to document the special event for a feature KPBS is doing on our work. 

The event began when Dr. Leslie Mauerman, Associate Professor of Education at CSU, heard about how we were using music to engage students and address many areas of the curriculum. She thought our class's use of music could provide some inspiration to the people she's training to be teachers, and we began a dialogue which ended up in this special concert.

All 25 members of Mr. Schwartz's class are part of the band. We'll be playing at least 4 songs using various combinations of students. Our band is only 2 months old so you can bet that we're rehearsing really hard to be on top of our game!

The First Grade Blues Band is Making a CD and Learning Multitrack Digital Recording

We're laying down tracks for our upcoming CD using the multi track recording Apple Computer Program called "Garage Band". It's great because the kids get to work in groups and listen to their recordings, and then decide if they want to do retakes and change the way they are using intonation, diction, phrasing, and volume.

I got a pro drummer to lay down some drum and bass tracks and the rest of it is all us. Don't think for a second that it won't rock though; you will be plenty surprised at how awesome it sounds!