From Angela Stefanini, Charlotte Preparatory School
I’ve been teaching the history of the Star Spangled Banner since I began teaching music in 1997. I’ve been waiting patiently for its 200th birthday celebration in order to have a huge ordeal at my school. Proudly, we cast a major event for its bicentennial.
We had a fantastic celebration yesterday at Charlotte Preparatory School, a private Pre-K – 8th grade school in Charlotte, North Carolina. We celebrated on Patriot Day, September 11th with a full-school assembly. Approximately 450 students, teacher, and parents were in attendance. Classes were assigned specific shirt colors to wear on this day in order to create a human 15 striped, 15 starred flag from the War of 1812.
We began our assembly in the gym with the Pledge of Allegiance, the singing of “God Bless America,” followed by a moment of silence for Patriot Day. I then led a PowerPoint presentation on “The Star-Spangled Banner” and gave a brief history to summarize and review the historical facts our teachers had been instructing in class these past few weeks. Our 4th graders performed a play on “The Star-Spangled Banner,” with an original script (see attached) directed by our Drama teacher, Pamela Freedy. (see attached pics from performance)
After the play, the entire school sang the 4 verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner”
via Powerpoint while I accompanied on piano.
Once the assembly ended, we walked out onto our field and got into flag formation (see attached). We sang “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”
This was truly an all-out, all-hands-on-deck school event that staff, parents, teachers and students helped to create.