By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–Inadvertently, Katie Tohn mixed in a little history with a music lesson for her Union City Elementary School students.
It could not have worked out any better for all involved.
Tohn’s classes recently completed a unit on The Star-Spangled Banner while also learning in-depth the meaning of Frances Scott Key’s national anthem lyrics during a three-part study.
Scott penned the original Star-Spangled Banner after an anxious night during the British attack on Fort McHenry, writing victorious lyrics for a song celebrating the Americans’ resistance.
“I didn’t realize it at the time, but one of my students said: ‘I didn’t know that music would teach us history,’” Tohn laughed. “They were very inquisitive and really loved the unit we studied about the flag.
“Finding a language they could understand certainly opened their eyes to the words and their meaning.”
At the conclusion of their study, 3rd- and 4th-grade students then culminated the unit by using boomwhacker instruments to play the anthem.
A boomwhacker is a musical instrument in the idiophone percussion family. They are lightweight, hollow, color-coded, plastic tubes tuned to a musical pitch by length. Craig Ramsell first produced them through his company, Whacky Music in 1995.
“You could tell by the looks on their faces how intent they were with the boomwhackers,” Tohn added. “They (boomwhackers) ended up being a wonderful tool in this practice.”