Star Spangled Music Day Report—North Carolina

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.

Key, Beanes & Skinner


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.

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