There was a bright sound inside and outside Willow School on Friday, Oct. 21, when the bands started playing.
Homewood-Flossmoor High School Marching Band director Sarah Witlock and 14 band members carried the tune, and the 18 members of the Willow Band had the beat for their first joint performance of the season.
H-F music teacher Mason Riedel, brought his tuba and played with Otis Rasmussen-Minster, a member of the Willow Band. (Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)
Willow students, teachers, staff and parents enjoyed the musical treat.
Homewood’s Willow School started the band last year. This year, under the direction of Amelia Riedel, the new general music teacher, the band took on new significance.
Principal Melissa Lawson said she was encouraged that Riedel wanted to continue the idea, but was pleasantly surprised when she brought in the H-F marching band.
Riedel said when the school year started, teachers and students asked about having the band.
Riedel realized “it was something that they loved. They enjoyed it so much, but I was thinking, why not have an actual marching band come and play.” She thought it would give them “a core memory” and “instill a love of music and get them to appreciate it and find it exciting.”
The kindergarteners, first graders and second graders became members of the Willow Band by spending their Willow Wows. Students earn a Wow every time a teacher recognizes them for positive behavior – such as helping a friend or standing quietly in line. Lawson said it is part of the reinforcement for the kindness school culture with staff using positive behavioral intervention support.
A cart goes around to classrooms every two weeks and students can spend their Wows on trinkets that cost 10 Wows, 20 Wows, 30 Wows. To be in the band costs 40 Wows.
Riedel said teachers told her when the announcement was made that the band would be back this school year, students started saving up their Wows.
At 2:30 p.m. that Friday when the H-F High students arrived, all band members met in a classroom – Willow students with their hand-held drums and egg shakers on one side and H-F band members with their instruments on the other. Then the rehearsal began.
“We have been working on steady beat and being able to identify and find it in a song,” Riedel said, “so that was a proud teacher moment for me watching them play with the marching band. Even though it was probably (a song) they hadn’t heard before they were playing to the steady beat and had found the steady beat on their own and were able to play along with it.”
Then the Willow students sprinted to the other side of the room to pair up with a high school student. With a practice under their belts, the joint band started its march through the hallways of Willow School and out the front door to be cheered by family and friends.
The teacher deemed the band cooperative a success.
“Being in band and choir is amazing and that’s an activity that they can continue on with the rest of their lives,” Riedel said, but she hopes her young students learn to appreciate music and are able to find the fun in it.
“And I just love that we get to have fun and play games and songs. It’s almost like undercover learning, which I think is so cool,” she said. “I love knowing that if I do my job right, they’re going to want to go to H-F and be in that marching band themselves one day.”
And maybe they’ll get a turn to be an H-F student marching through Willow School.