It is almost Summer Break and you know what that means? Sleeping in, being lazy, and a whole lot of nothing! While this is great for a while, we expect our students to not fall into these habits for too long over the break. Finding creative ways to keep students motivated is a key to seeing success after the Summer!
End of the School Year
As the school year wraps up, be sure to have contact information for everyone - student emails, mailing addresses, and parent emails. This will allow you to contact families with reminders in multiple ways at the end of July! Create a Google Classroom where you can post announcements over the summer for families to stay up to date.
Be sure to also have a plan for the summer if you are hosting private lessons or any sort of rehearsals. Do you have a Band Leadership Team? Plan a half day where they can learn more about being a leader and also get some tasks done around the band hall!
Prepare them in advance for summer break success by giving them new music, fundamentals, solos, or anything to keep their practice habits going! If they don’t have anything to work on or prepare, they won’t keep practicing with any regularity.
Summer Rehearsals/Tuesday Tunes
Not everyone wants to work on their down time, which I totally get! We started “Tuesday Tunes” my first year because my co-worker at the time had done them at his previous school. Now, I can’t imagine my summer without them! We host students for 1 hour on Tuesdays (from 11 AM to noon) and work on the pep tunes for the next school year! We have to have them pretty set by our 6th grade Welcome Pep Rally, so this just accelerates that growth and also allows the 8th graders to feel extra awesome helping out the new 7th graders.
Everyone going into 7th and 8th grade are welcome (and alumni can come back, too!) which makes it more of a social event as well! We usually try to have a snack or some sort at the end (bulk donuts, Oreos, etc) and allow the kids time to visit with friends. This is especially important to the culture of the band so students keep in touch. If this is the ONE time they actually play their instrument in a week, we will take that win! This time also allows us as the directors to already see who is making consistent growth, practicing, and showing up as a leader! You can introduce full band concepts for the first time with incoming 7th graders and allow the 8th graders to be a great example. We try to keep it fun and light so students want to come and hang out for a bit!
Spread the word on your Summer Google Classroom, Remind, or social media! You will want to have alumni come back to help, too. You especially want percussionists so they can help teach the new students about setting up marching equipment and stands! This is also a great way for kids to see mellophones and sousaphones before they get into high school and get everyone hyped up for high school marching band in the future.
Make it worth their time! Consider passing out tickets or having them sign into a google form each week. At the end of the summer, use a wheel of names to pick some winners for small items (old spirit wear, gift cards, whatever you have around the band hall!) for coming to these summer sessions and seeing growth. Prizes are always a motivator!
Summer Private Lessons
Highly encourage summer private lessons! This is a non-negotiable so that everyone can start the year off having had a dedicated time each week to work on etudes, scales, fundamentals, and fun music with their teacher. Many parents see summer time as a natural break, but you can work to change that mindset. It is a break from everything except band and athletics - those are the two classes you must stay in shape for during the summer time. Students who take private lessons usually come back strongest of everyone because they had a practice goal and plan all summer.
Director Preparation
Use your summer time to get some essentials done and off your list so your school year can start off less stressful!
- Locker assignments and labels/tags
- Assemble band binders if you make them for your students
- Get contact information all set for the next year’s roster
- Check your Sight Reading binders and make sure you have enough for the new bands that year.
- Get extra music copies ready for the next year.
- Get your band set up ready for the next year with tapes on the floors.
- Organize storage rooms so everything is easy to find.
- If you host a Summer Band Camp, get all the necessary materials ready for that in advance.
- Start listening to literature and picking music for your Fall and/or Winter concerts. I suggest listening to the Band BFFs (shameless plug) podcast for ideas! Bandbffs.com
Summer Band Camp
If you host a Summer Band Camp, be sure to communicate about this early and often so it’s on everyone’s calendar. We may ours free so that everyone wants to attend and we attach a fun social to each day. Some cheaper ideas are having a massive water balloon fight, movie time in the band hall, popsicles or frozen treats, or even as easy as renting a Kona ice truck for the end!
This is our time to get ready for our 6th Grade Pep Rally performance, which happens before the school year starts. We have a little fundamentals time, as well as learning/reviewing all the pep tunes we will play. Tuesday Tunes are so helpful for this because you will have built in leaders to help everyone sound their best!
Use some of your summer break to plan this out well so that everything runs smoothly and doesn’t cause more stress for you at the beginning of the year. Use those leaders to help out!
Band Leadership Team
If you don’t have one yet, I suggest starting one! This will always give you a great group of helpers and students to help with the leadership culture of your band. We do a BLT and Loading Crew day at the end of the summer after Tuesday Tunes where we buy the students pizza, talk about what it means to be a leader, and then work on getting the band hall ready for the school year. This is again a wonderful way to give students a sense of purpose and leadership, no matter their level of band/skill. We regularly meet during the school year and plan our community service events and help around the band hall and school. Small Summer Work = Success!
As a mom of two middle school boys, I understand the importance of rest and relaxation! We still take family vacations, enjoy downtime, and plenty of memories are made! All of these suggestions are very little time out of your summer break, but help everyone to feel more bonded and ready to go for the beginning of the year! Feel free to reach out for more details on any of these Summer Strategies for Success!
