{"id":18808,"date":"2020-12-18T15:05:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T21:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/?p=18808"},"modified":"2021-01-07T14:51:05","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T20:51:05","slug":"a-first-grader-in-a-rock-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/2020\/12\/18\/a-first-grader-in-a-rock-band\/","title":{"rendered":"A First Grader In A Rock Band?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EloiseHow many seven year old kids can say they play in a band?\u00a0 First grader Eloise can! Through School of Rock in St. Paul, Eloise plays the keyboard, performing hits with her band like \u201cGreat DJ\u201d by the Ting Tings and Janelle Monae\u2019s \u201cDance Apocalyptic\u201d.\u00a0 \u201c\u200bI like working with a group to make music and getting to know new people and I like my teachers,\u201d says Eloise. \u201cThey make playing music together fun!\u00a0 I really like learning new songs and chords. I like to find notes on the keyboard that match the song and rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eloise\u2019s introduction to piano came about serendipitously.\u00a0 Last year, she signed up for music lessons offered by MPA senior Skylar Cernohous, a member of the class of 2020 who now attends the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University.\u00a0 As part of her senior service project, \u00a0Skylar gave weekly 30 minute piano lessons to seven MPA students in kindergarten, first, and second grade.\u00a0 \u201cMy experience with music helped influence the project. I was in four music classes at MPA and spent a lot of my time with music . I\u2019ve played the piano since I was in first grade, so I wanted to give other children the same opportunity to start young. Piano has been a huge part of my life.<\/p>\n

\"SkylerSkylar and Eloise\u2019s connection was immediate. \u201cI loved working with Eloise, she was always excited to come to lessons, and got better every week, I could tell she practiced outside of lesson times which isn\u2019t always the case for kids that age. She was also my latest lesson of the week, so before her lessons, she would sometimes spend time in the Makerspace working on homemade crafts that she would give me, which I found super sweet!\u201d\u00a0 Eloise quickly fell for piano and learned so much from Skylar! \u201cI really liked how she taught me songs that I was interested in. She was my first piano teacher. She was calm, but excited to show me how to play the piano,\u201d said Eloise.<\/p>\n

From the start, Eloise loved piano. \u201cMy parents saw how much I liked playing and decided to find a place where I could play more music,\u201d she said, adding that she hopes to one day learn the guitar and cello. \u201cThough cellos are bigger than me right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that Skylar got just as much out of it as her students.\u00a0 \u201cIt was just fun seeing the kids get better every week and learn songs that they wanted to focus on, a lot of them did Star Wars. I\u2019m so happy Eloise has stuck with it. Playing the piano has given me so many life opportunities and it is fun to see her do well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EloiseAmazingly, Eloise\u2019s mom, MPA\u2019s Makerspace Coordinator Nicole Koen, actually taught Skylar when she was younger.\u00a0 \u201c\u200bI remember teaching Skylar in Lower and Middle school when I was the computer science teacher. One of the joys of being a teacher at MPA is that we get a glimpse into the future of our youngest learners. Because we are all on one campus, we can watch students grow and develop into independent thinkers, dreamers, doers, and contributors to our world,\u201d she said. \u00a0\u201cSkylar’s passion for music came full circle when Eloise had the opportunity to take piano lessons as part of her senior service project. I thought to myself, “Of course Skylar is offering free piano lessons!\u201d.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eloise and her band will be playing this Sunday, December 20 at 11:40AM CST, streamed live on School of Rock St. Paul’s YouTube Channel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How many seven year old kids can say they play in a band?\u00a0 First grader Eloise can! Through School of Rock in St. Paul, Eloise plays the keyboard, performing hits with her band like \u201cGreat DJ\u201d by the Ting Tings and Janelle Monae\u2019s \u201cDance Apocalyptic\u201d.\u00a0 \u201c\u200bI like working with a group to make music and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":18809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,19,26,28,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-admission","category-alumni","category-blog","category-current-families","category-fine-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18808"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18889,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18808\/revisions\/18889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}