The Early Childhood Choir recently gained a new teacher, Rachel Randall. The Early Childhood choir is much more than just a group of singing children. The D-Notes Early Childhood choir is a space for the kids to have fun and interact with the teacher, as well as learn about music. The Early Childhood students are given the opportunity to develop their sense of pitch as well as their musical skills. Hannah Crowley was the previous Early Childhood choir teacher and is now the Vocal Point teacher for the third grade, fourth grade and the middle school. One of Mrs. Crowley’s favorite parts about previously being the choir teacher was the fact that the children treated her like a celebrity and were always enthusiastic and brand new for class each day.  

“It was great! I love teaching them,” she said. Smaller kids usually have short attention spans and tempers requiring them to be constantly entertained. Mrs. Crowley took this into consideration when planning her lessons. She broke the class agenda down into different parts, so that the kids never got bored from doing an activity too long. For example, the kids would practice half of a song and then play a game. After this, they learned the other half of the song and played another game. This allowed the kids to feel like they are playing and being active while learning. 

Mrs. Crowley said, “If they’re interested, then they aren’t going to misbehave.” Another activity that Mrs. Crowley did was an exercise where the kids would repeat a line of a song that she sang. This helped strengthen their voices and hearing. The Early Childhood choir is a great way to prepare the younger kids for singing opportunities as they get older. It is a place for them to express themselves through song. 

“I wanted to challenge myself to do more complicated music,” Mrs. Crowley said. After teaching at Hutchison for 3 years, Mrs. Crowley decided that she wanted to teach older girls. She wanted to be a full time teacher at Hutchison and felt that teaching older girls would allow her to develop relationships with her students. Teaching the younger kids did not give Mrs. Crowley the opportunity to do this. Mrs. Crowley also wanted to be able to spend more time with her kids. She has three  daughters who go to Hutchison and are in first grade, kindergarten, and pre-kindergarten. 

Mrs. Crowley said, “If I have a bad day as a teacher, everyday is brand new,” She has learned a lot from teaching the younger kids like classroom management and grace as a teacher. She never felt embarrassed around the students because she knew that they would never judge her or truly remember the previous class. She also learned that not all of the classes are the same. One choir section might be better behaved than another, so she could not judge the entire grade of girls. Mrs. Crowley used her love for singing to help the younger students express themselves through song.