Several years ago my auditioned choir, Prairie Voices, had a rough end to the year. A large number of my eighth graders who had been incredibly important to that choir and to my program just kind of quit on me: they collapsed into conflict and drama, they stopped working hard, and when I called them out on it, their response to me was essentially "we have had you for three years now, we feel like we've learned all we can from you, we don't really want to listen to what you have to say anymore." I was floored and incredibly hurt, but after some intense reflection I came to the realization that the complete implosion of this immensely gifted eighth grade class was pretty much completely my fault. As for why it was my fault? I'll get into that story in another post.
This post is about the Mini-Camp that I have been doing with my auditioned choir for four years now, but the event I mentioned above was a large part of my motivation to start doing the camp with my Prairie Voices students.
The frustrating part in all this was that this group was good. They were really good. So good in fact that the recording I made of them at the end of the year got the group invited to perform at the following year's Colorado Music Educators Association Conference, which was a significant honor that I had been trying to accomplish with choirs of mine for some time. When I sent in their recording, I felt they had a good shot of getting in, but I was also freaking out because all of my really strong eighth grade singers would be in high school the following year and wouldn't be eligible to perform. So I needed a way to get my new group to start learning their conference repertoire and gelling as a choir as soon as possible. Not knowing whether we would make it into CMEA or not, I scheduled the mini-camp for about 3 weeks before school was scheduled to start and told the next year's Prairie Voices about it invited them to come, figuring if we didn't get accepted the camp would still be worthwhile for the choir, and if we did make it then I would be really glad I had scheduled the camp in advance. So that was the first reason I created the camp, to give my students a head start on (what would hopefully be) their conference repertoire so we wouldn't have to start the year learning pitches and rhythms.
My other impetus for creating the camp was not musical. Along with quitting on me at the end of the year, that eighth grade students in my select group had done very little to reach out to the seventh graders that were also with them in that choir. I had certainly noticed that the eighth graders tended to keep to themselves in that class, and quite a few of them had substantial personalities which made the seventh graders even more timid than they would otherwise have been. It made for a dysfunctional dynamic, but the group sang well so I let it go. Around the same time my eighth graders were checking out on me, several of my seventh graders in the group began to mention to me how they did not feel welcomed or supported by the eighth graders in the group. Not at the beginning of the year, and not throughout the year either. They were in awe of that class's talent, but never felt connected to them in any meaningful way. Even earlier in my career I had wanted my choirs to be true communities of people who connected to one another through music, a goal that is now at the epicenter of my teaching philosophy and goals, but I wasn't very proactive in making it happen. I don't know if I just thought it would happen organically through the music or what, but I didn't take as active of a role in facilitating that bonding and connection as I do now. Something had to change, and so the second reasons I created the camp was to help the returning eighth graders get to know/welcome the new seventh graders and to facilitate group bonding to ensure our functioning as a community and as an ensemble.
How did I accomplish my two goals? Below I describe in detail how I set up my Mini-Camp and why I do things the way I do them. I have made tweaks and improvements every year, but for the most part the structure now is quite similar to what I did that first year, because it works for me and my students.
1.) I schedule the camp for the last full week of July, which is about two weeks before staff at my school have to report back and three weeks before the first day of school. I wanted it in late July/early August because I figured:
*I wanted it to be close enough to school starting that students would retain most of what they'd learned and would be propelled forward into the new year.
*The closer we got to school starting, the less likely I would run into conflicts with family vacations (there are still always conflicts of course but probably not as many as doing the camp in June or early July).
*Colorado ACDA is always the third week of July and I didn't want to conflict with that.
I think originally I wanted to do the week before the staff work week, but my orchestra director had scheduled her strings camp that week, so I went one week earlier to avoid the conflict. Now though I like having that time. I do Mini-Camp and then I have one more week of summer/getting my room ready before I officially have to report back.
2.) The camp is only three days long instead of a full week, for 5.5 hours each day, on the Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday of that week. Three days is the perfect length for something like this. It's hot in July, and the A/C is real spotty in our building, and I work the kids hard in those three days. I think if it went longer the kids would start flagging. Plus I think a three day commitment is easier for parents to get on board with, and I deliberately put it in the middle of the week to avoid conflicts with Mondays and Fridays, which I figured families are more likely to be leaving on or returning from vacations on those days. We start every day at 9am (it's summer, no need to start super early), and I have them out by 2:30 with a half an hour lunch break at 12. These are middle school kids and I want them to have a great time and leave the camp wanting more and excited for the year to start, not drained and exhausted from 8 hour mega-rehearsals.
3.) I don't charge students for the mini-camp and I use my school as the camp venue. I don't do this camp to make money, it is strictly for the benefit of my choir program, and thus it is in my best interests to try to get as many of my Prairie Voices students to attend as possible. In the community where I teach, charging a fee could potentially be a barrier for some families, and even if it isn't I just don't feel the need to ask them for money for a camp that costs me very little overhead. I do the camp on my school campus so I don't have to pay for a venue, so other than buying the kids pizza on the last day and a few other supplies I always need, it doesn't cost me much to run. Two of the four years I have done this camp, though, Prairie has been closed for renovation over the summer which has forced me to get creative. In those years (which included this summer) I was fortunately able to use our STEM building next door (which is jointly operated by Prairie and our feeder high school that shares our campus) to host the camp, which works pretty well except there is no large space to do big group activities. In those years, we end up spending more time outside because we can get the whole group together.
4.) I don't require attendance at the camp but I strongly encourage it, and I communicate with students throughout the summer (via social media and mailings home to their parents) to remind them about camp. The first few years I did this camp, I was frantically sending a letter and permission slip home to my new Prairie Voices on the last week of school, which was way too late, and I ended up going into the summer having NO idea how many kids would show up. This year I finally got smart. I did my auditions for Prairie Voices in April, so in early May I called an after-school meeting for the 2017-18 group and I gave them all the mini-camp information a month before the end of school and asked them to bring me back a form with their parent contact info and one of three options selected:
*My child will definitely be attending the Mini-Camp.
*My child will not be attending the Mini-Camp.
*We are unsure yet of our summer plans but we will email you once we know.
Then I make sure I have all of those students' mailing addresses before the school year ends. Then about 2-3 weeks before camp I do a mailing to all the parents who either confirmed yes or who never sent the form back. The mailing included an informational letter about what students needed to bring and the camp schedule. For the parents who never sent the form back, I include an extra note asking them to please email me letting me know whether their student will be attending or not. I also promote the camp on my choir Facebook and Instagram pages in the weeks leading up to camp. Attendance isn't mandatory, I know I can never get 100% of my choir there in the summer, but this year I had the best turnout I've ever had: over 2/3 of my choir attended the mini-camp this year!
5.) I bring in three guest clinicians to work with my students in sectional rehearsals, one for the sopranos, one for the altos, and one for the men. I think this is one of the key things I do with my camp, bringing in other music teachers to work with my kids. Since we're learning music from scratch, most of rehearsal is spent split into sectionals. It's a great opportunity for my students to learn from teachers other than myself, and it allows me to focus more on the logistics of running the camp. I've had different people do my camp over the years: I have brought one of my mentor teachers in, other colleagues of mine who were available, but recently I have brought in young teacher friends of mine who are just starting out in their first or second year. Two of them recently student taught with me and the third is a close friend of theirs who I have gotten to know. All three are great young educators and were really grateful for the extra experience, which allowed us to build a mutually beneficial relationship that has worked out really well. I think we as educators who have been doing this for a while need to have more of these reciprocal relationships with our younger colleagues beyond just taking on student teachers, but that's again a subject for another post.
6.) I choose three pieces to work on at camp with which we will start our year. I want to start with my auditioned choir on the first day of school and not have to completely start from scratch. It's great to have piece that my students who attended to camp learned their parts for, which makes the first two weeks of school way more fun and musically fulfilling than they otherwise might be. Three seems like a pretty good number.
7.) Time is split pretty evenly between rehearsal and games/team-building. A typical mini-camp day starts with team-building and/or energizing games, then a group vocal warm-up, then a sectional, then a break/another game, then another sectional, then lunch, then more team-building, then a final sectional and then a large group wrap-up rehearsal. I want my kids to be singing together a lot, but the group bonding is equally (if not, to be honest, MORE) important than the music-learning, so I make sure to include plenty of time in the schedule for group play and team-building activities.
8.) The games and team-building are IMPORTANT. Recently I saw someone post on a choir social media group of which I am a part that they felt team-building activities and ice-breakers were only for elementary-aged students and they didn't like to do them. To each their own, but I have to respectfully disagree. I think team-building is amazing, and I say this as a lifelong introvert who HATED these activities when I was younger and was convinced they were designed to torture introverts like me. However, I started a summer job my last year of college working for the Boulder County Youth Corps, where I lead a team of 10 high school students doing public works projects for Boulder County Parks and Open Space. Team-building was a large part of the program's focus, so much so that we had time in our daily schedule to do it. During my tenure in that job, which actually lasted six summers, I learned a TON of team-building games and activities that I still use with my students. Some of them are just silly ways to get kids comfortable with each other, some of them are challenges where kids have to communicate and work together to solve problems. I think getting kids to break down barriers and actually connect with each other is incredibly important to the success of an ensemble, ESPECIALLY a choir. Knock 'em if you want, but at the end of three days I see my kids way more comfortable with each other than they were at the beginning of the camp. I swear by team-building and I make it a priority.For some of my battle-tested team building exercises that I love, go here.
9.) I do my best to mix kids up and encourage them to reach out to people they don't know. I encourage my eighth graders, especially my section leaders, to welcome kids they don't know and to reach out to students who tend to hang back by themselves (more in #10). This year I had my students playing games and eating lunch by section on the first day. On the second day, I mixed my kids up and gave them one of three different symbols on their name tags. I had them sort by symbol on their name tag and they did games and ate lunch in those groups. Middle school kids (or people in general) will stick with who they know and what's comfortable if left to their own devices, and so they need a little push to start connecting with people they don't know.
10.) I utilize student leadership. This one really started this year. I made sure all of my section leaders could attend the camp when I selected them, and then I asked them to come to school for a couple of hours the day before mini-camp started for a short training. We did some team-building so that they could start functioning together as a leadership "team" within our larger choir family, and so they knew all of the games we were going to do so they could help me lead them when we split into smaller groups (a lot of my games don't work so well with a full choir of 40-60 people, so teach the game to the whole group and then we split up to make the games more successful). We ended our little training with me talking about my expectations of them for the camp and for the year. It really made my camp go more smoothly, and I am excited to see how the year goes as I rely more on student leadership than I have in the past.
11.) We have a talk about what the year is going to look like on the last day. After lunch and a final team-building game on our last day, and before our final rehearsal, I get the choir together and we have a little talk. I ask some returners and some new students what they hope to get out of their year in this choir, and then I talk about my expectations. We discuss supporting one another, coming together as a family, working hard so we can be the best we can be, and it sets the tone for the year we want to have together.
12.) We end the camp with a short, INFORMAL "performance" of our three songs for the students' parents to show them what we've been working on all week. I invite the parents of my students to come and watch us run through our songs at the very end of our last rehearsal. I call it an informal "concert," and I make sure to preface the fact that the performance will be rough since we don't have the full choir and we have only rehearsed the music for three days. I think it's great though to show the parents what we've been working on at camp, and they so rarely get to see the process of what we do or even a work in progress, they generally only see the finished product at the concert. It's one of my favorite parts of the camp and the parents really enjoy it as well.
So there you have it. I believe finding these opportunities to get your choir away from the school environment and really focus on building community and intense music making is such a fantastic opportunity to enrich your choir's experience. Summer doesn't work for everyone, but a retreat, even just a day long retreat on a Saturday or a no school day can be hugely beneficial. My choir will continue to grow closer as a community throughout the school year due to our making music together, but we cannot make music at high levels if we are not vulnerable, and we can't be vulnerable if we don't trust each other. The mini-camp is our first step towards building that trust, and getting our year started before we officially "start."
This post is about the Mini-Camp that I have been doing with my auditioned choir for four years now, but the event I mentioned above was a large part of my motivation to start doing the camp with my Prairie Voices students.
The frustrating part in all this was that this group was good. They were really good. So good in fact that the recording I made of them at the end of the year got the group invited to perform at the following year's Colorado Music Educators Association Conference, which was a significant honor that I had been trying to accomplish with choirs of mine for some time. When I sent in their recording, I felt they had a good shot of getting in, but I was also freaking out because all of my really strong eighth grade singers would be in high school the following year and wouldn't be eligible to perform. So I needed a way to get my new group to start learning their conference repertoire and gelling as a choir as soon as possible. Not knowing whether we would make it into CMEA or not, I scheduled the mini-camp for about 3 weeks before school was scheduled to start and told the next year's Prairie Voices about it invited them to come, figuring if we didn't get accepted the camp would still be worthwhile for the choir, and if we did make it then I would be really glad I had scheduled the camp in advance. So that was the first reason I created the camp, to give my students a head start on (what would hopefully be) their conference repertoire so we wouldn't have to start the year learning pitches and rhythms.
My other impetus for creating the camp was not musical. Along with quitting on me at the end of the year, that eighth grade students in my select group had done very little to reach out to the seventh graders that were also with them in that choir. I had certainly noticed that the eighth graders tended to keep to themselves in that class, and quite a few of them had substantial personalities which made the seventh graders even more timid than they would otherwise have been. It made for a dysfunctional dynamic, but the group sang well so I let it go. Around the same time my eighth graders were checking out on me, several of my seventh graders in the group began to mention to me how they did not feel welcomed or supported by the eighth graders in the group. Not at the beginning of the year, and not throughout the year either. They were in awe of that class's talent, but never felt connected to them in any meaningful way. Even earlier in my career I had wanted my choirs to be true communities of people who connected to one another through music, a goal that is now at the epicenter of my teaching philosophy and goals, but I wasn't very proactive in making it happen. I don't know if I just thought it would happen organically through the music or what, but I didn't take as active of a role in facilitating that bonding and connection as I do now. Something had to change, and so the second reasons I created the camp was to help the returning eighth graders get to know/welcome the new seventh graders and to facilitate group bonding to ensure our functioning as a community and as an ensemble.
How did I accomplish my two goals? Below I describe in detail how I set up my Mini-Camp and why I do things the way I do them. I have made tweaks and improvements every year, but for the most part the structure now is quite similar to what I did that first year, because it works for me and my students.
1.) I schedule the camp for the last full week of July, which is about two weeks before staff at my school have to report back and three weeks before the first day of school. I wanted it in late July/early August because I figured:
*I wanted it to be close enough to school starting that students would retain most of what they'd learned and would be propelled forward into the new year.
*The closer we got to school starting, the less likely I would run into conflicts with family vacations (there are still always conflicts of course but probably not as many as doing the camp in June or early July).
*Colorado ACDA is always the third week of July and I didn't want to conflict with that.
I think originally I wanted to do the week before the staff work week, but my orchestra director had scheduled her strings camp that week, so I went one week earlier to avoid the conflict. Now though I like having that time. I do Mini-Camp and then I have one more week of summer/getting my room ready before I officially have to report back.
2.) The camp is only three days long instead of a full week, for 5.5 hours each day, on the Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday of that week. Three days is the perfect length for something like this. It's hot in July, and the A/C is real spotty in our building, and I work the kids hard in those three days. I think if it went longer the kids would start flagging. Plus I think a three day commitment is easier for parents to get on board with, and I deliberately put it in the middle of the week to avoid conflicts with Mondays and Fridays, which I figured families are more likely to be leaving on or returning from vacations on those days. We start every day at 9am (it's summer, no need to start super early), and I have them out by 2:30 with a half an hour lunch break at 12. These are middle school kids and I want them to have a great time and leave the camp wanting more and excited for the year to start, not drained and exhausted from 8 hour mega-rehearsals.
3.) I don't charge students for the mini-camp and I use my school as the camp venue. I don't do this camp to make money, it is strictly for the benefit of my choir program, and thus it is in my best interests to try to get as many of my Prairie Voices students to attend as possible. In the community where I teach, charging a fee could potentially be a barrier for some families, and even if it isn't I just don't feel the need to ask them for money for a camp that costs me very little overhead. I do the camp on my school campus so I don't have to pay for a venue, so other than buying the kids pizza on the last day and a few other supplies I always need, it doesn't cost me much to run. Two of the four years I have done this camp, though, Prairie has been closed for renovation over the summer which has forced me to get creative. In those years (which included this summer) I was fortunately able to use our STEM building next door (which is jointly operated by Prairie and our feeder high school that shares our campus) to host the camp, which works pretty well except there is no large space to do big group activities. In those years, we end up spending more time outside because we can get the whole group together.
4.) I don't require attendance at the camp but I strongly encourage it, and I communicate with students throughout the summer (via social media and mailings home to their parents) to remind them about camp. The first few years I did this camp, I was frantically sending a letter and permission slip home to my new Prairie Voices on the last week of school, which was way too late, and I ended up going into the summer having NO idea how many kids would show up. This year I finally got smart. I did my auditions for Prairie Voices in April, so in early May I called an after-school meeting for the 2017-18 group and I gave them all the mini-camp information a month before the end of school and asked them to bring me back a form with their parent contact info and one of three options selected:
*My child will definitely be attending the Mini-Camp.
*My child will not be attending the Mini-Camp.
*We are unsure yet of our summer plans but we will email you once we know.
Then I make sure I have all of those students' mailing addresses before the school year ends. Then about 2-3 weeks before camp I do a mailing to all the parents who either confirmed yes or who never sent the form back. The mailing included an informational letter about what students needed to bring and the camp schedule. For the parents who never sent the form back, I include an extra note asking them to please email me letting me know whether their student will be attending or not. I also promote the camp on my choir Facebook and Instagram pages in the weeks leading up to camp. Attendance isn't mandatory, I know I can never get 100% of my choir there in the summer, but this year I had the best turnout I've ever had: over 2/3 of my choir attended the mini-camp this year!
5.) I bring in three guest clinicians to work with my students in sectional rehearsals, one for the sopranos, one for the altos, and one for the men. I think this is one of the key things I do with my camp, bringing in other music teachers to work with my kids. Since we're learning music from scratch, most of rehearsal is spent split into sectionals. It's a great opportunity for my students to learn from teachers other than myself, and it allows me to focus more on the logistics of running the camp. I've had different people do my camp over the years: I have brought one of my mentor teachers in, other colleagues of mine who were available, but recently I have brought in young teacher friends of mine who are just starting out in their first or second year. Two of them recently student taught with me and the third is a close friend of theirs who I have gotten to know. All three are great young educators and were really grateful for the extra experience, which allowed us to build a mutually beneficial relationship that has worked out really well. I think we as educators who have been doing this for a while need to have more of these reciprocal relationships with our younger colleagues beyond just taking on student teachers, but that's again a subject for another post.
6.) I choose three pieces to work on at camp with which we will start our year. I want to start with my auditioned choir on the first day of school and not have to completely start from scratch. It's great to have piece that my students who attended to camp learned their parts for, which makes the first two weeks of school way more fun and musically fulfilling than they otherwise might be. Three seems like a pretty good number.
7.) Time is split pretty evenly between rehearsal and games/team-building. A typical mini-camp day starts with team-building and/or energizing games, then a group vocal warm-up, then a sectional, then a break/another game, then another sectional, then lunch, then more team-building, then a final sectional and then a large group wrap-up rehearsal. I want my kids to be singing together a lot, but the group bonding is equally (if not, to be honest, MORE) important than the music-learning, so I make sure to include plenty of time in the schedule for group play and team-building activities.
8.) The games and team-building are IMPORTANT. Recently I saw someone post on a choir social media group of which I am a part that they felt team-building activities and ice-breakers were only for elementary-aged students and they didn't like to do them. To each their own, but I have to respectfully disagree. I think team-building is amazing, and I say this as a lifelong introvert who HATED these activities when I was younger and was convinced they were designed to torture introverts like me. However, I started a summer job my last year of college working for the Boulder County Youth Corps, where I lead a team of 10 high school students doing public works projects for Boulder County Parks and Open Space. Team-building was a large part of the program's focus, so much so that we had time in our daily schedule to do it. During my tenure in that job, which actually lasted six summers, I learned a TON of team-building games and activities that I still use with my students. Some of them are just silly ways to get kids comfortable with each other, some of them are challenges where kids have to communicate and work together to solve problems. I think getting kids to break down barriers and actually connect with each other is incredibly important to the success of an ensemble, ESPECIALLY a choir. Knock 'em if you want, but at the end of three days I see my kids way more comfortable with each other than they were at the beginning of the camp. I swear by team-building and I make it a priority.For some of my battle-tested team building exercises that I love, go here.
9.) I do my best to mix kids up and encourage them to reach out to people they don't know. I encourage my eighth graders, especially my section leaders, to welcome kids they don't know and to reach out to students who tend to hang back by themselves (more in #10). This year I had my students playing games and eating lunch by section on the first day. On the second day, I mixed my kids up and gave them one of three different symbols on their name tags. I had them sort by symbol on their name tag and they did games and ate lunch in those groups. Middle school kids (or people in general) will stick with who they know and what's comfortable if left to their own devices, and so they need a little push to start connecting with people they don't know.
10.) I utilize student leadership. This one really started this year. I made sure all of my section leaders could attend the camp when I selected them, and then I asked them to come to school for a couple of hours the day before mini-camp started for a short training. We did some team-building so that they could start functioning together as a leadership "team" within our larger choir family, and so they knew all of the games we were going to do so they could help me lead them when we split into smaller groups (a lot of my games don't work so well with a full choir of 40-60 people, so teach the game to the whole group and then we split up to make the games more successful). We ended our little training with me talking about my expectations of them for the camp and for the year. It really made my camp go more smoothly, and I am excited to see how the year goes as I rely more on student leadership than I have in the past.
11.) We have a talk about what the year is going to look like on the last day. After lunch and a final team-building game on our last day, and before our final rehearsal, I get the choir together and we have a little talk. I ask some returners and some new students what they hope to get out of their year in this choir, and then I talk about my expectations. We discuss supporting one another, coming together as a family, working hard so we can be the best we can be, and it sets the tone for the year we want to have together.
12.) We end the camp with a short, INFORMAL "performance" of our three songs for the students' parents to show them what we've been working on all week. I invite the parents of my students to come and watch us run through our songs at the very end of our last rehearsal. I call it an informal "concert," and I make sure to preface the fact that the performance will be rough since we don't have the full choir and we have only rehearsed the music for three days. I think it's great though to show the parents what we've been working on at camp, and they so rarely get to see the process of what we do or even a work in progress, they generally only see the finished product at the concert. It's one of my favorite parts of the camp and the parents really enjoy it as well.
So there you have it. I believe finding these opportunities to get your choir away from the school environment and really focus on building community and intense music making is such a fantastic opportunity to enrich your choir's experience. Summer doesn't work for everyone, but a retreat, even just a day long retreat on a Saturday or a no school day can be hugely beneficial. My choir will continue to grow closer as a community throughout the school year due to our making music together, but we cannot make music at high levels if we are not vulnerable, and we can't be vulnerable if we don't trust each other. The mini-camp is our first step towards building that trust, and getting our year started before we officially "start."
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Darius