Uke Can Do It! (Part 2)

At Irving Middle School we want to provide a music education that allows ALL students to experience success and joy through creating and learning about music. As students musical interests continue to change, we are constantly looking for new and unique ways to connect with them. I believe the next step for our school is to invest in ukuleles for each of our 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classes.

The value of learning a musical instrument has been proven over time to help with memory skills, coordination, improved reading and comprehension skills, and improved listening and social skills. Through 20 years of teaching I've personally seen many of these improvements in my students.

It's important in our classroom that we find an instrument that is accessible to all students and also fairly easy to learn so they experience success through the learning process. The ukulele is perfect for this. With only four strings, most of the chords are fairly easy to play. The strings are nylon and easy on the students fingers. The size of the ukuleles are also perfect for our middle school students.

I also love that a wide range of sheet music and resources are available for the ukulele. Song selections can range from classical to the newest pop music. This will allow us to choose from a number of resources with the hope of finding songs that connect with ALL of our students.

I hope you will consider supporting this exciting project as we continue to create opportunities for ALL students at Irving to enjoy the gift of music! Requesting $610.00 plus cost reimbursement.

We are making great progress on our Ukukele fund a need.  I just found out yesterday that we can now get the ukes for $35, which is an amazing discount.  Hopefully we can get this thing fully funded in the next couple weeks.  Please feel free to spread the word by sharing the link listed below.  I cannot wait to see how excited our students will be when we get the ukuleles in and start playing.  I already have some students asking about a Ukulele club!  How cool is that.  Thank you so much for your support.

Mike 

Fund A Need Link

Good evening! I just wanted to let everyone know that we got both of the Ukulele grants fully funded and were able to purchase 35 ukuleles for $35 a piece! We were so excited to get a great deal and purchase a few more than we had originally planned. 

We tuned all of the ukes the last week of school but you'll have to wait until the fall to see them being used by the students. So sorry to make everyone wait, but please know you've made a huge impact on our students already. They are so excited! We'll plan to use the ukes for our 6th and 7th grade classes. I'm hoping to build in some for our 8th grade chorus classes too, but still researching how that might work. I'll keep updating this list in the fall so you can see how everything is playing out. Thank you again for your support of ALL students at Irving. We are going to have a blast!

Mike Robb - Irving Choral Director

Ukuleles are a hit at Irving! Thank you so much for supporting this great project. Here are couple videos of our 7th graders playing them. They are getting better each time we practice and having a blast. Thank you so much! - Mike