Making Music at Home
Meet Village’s talented and experienced music teacher, Mrs. Dequiroz
By Danae C., Mom to Curious Caterpillar Nikolai
On Wednesdays in Talia and Gina’s class, it is Enrichment Day. The students do music, yoga and free choice reading. Music is taught by Raquel Dequiroz, who has been teaching at the district for more than 20 years, but don’t worry she keeps things current and is teaching the kids the song “You Can Count On Me” by Bruno Mars, among others.
Her weekly videos are wonderful and engaging. The lessons include not just singing, but also homemade instruments, music vocabulary and singing story times. My son often brags that he’s learning Italian because of the music language that is taught in these music classes. My son has a growing collection of instruments that he found around the house, the ones he’s made this year in music class. Mrs. Dequiroz tells me, “I would encourage families to help their students make instruments not only to use for the class but as a fun and easy art project they can do together.”
On Wednesdays, Mrs. Dequiroz offers a delightful live Zoom class to Village students from 1:15–2pm on a drop in basis. First grader Nikolai says he enjoys the Zooms and he recommends you try it. Mrs. Dequiroz is gifted at managing a group of students that she does not know well and who do not all know each other. She also magically includes them in the decisions of what to practice and in the lessons themselves.
I asked Mrs. Dequiroz if there was anything she wanted to share with the Village community and she responded, “My goal is to encourage a general exposure to music, theory, music vocabulary, instruments and have students (and parents) develop a lifelong appreciation and interest in music.” She also warns us that there are fewer and fewer music teachers in our district.
Mrs. Dequiroz is happy that parents are getting more exposure to her work while learning at home explaining, “The positive is that more parents have the opportunity to peek in on their child’s education and a few have even reached out.” She asks the students to email her with her their comments or performances.
I encourage our Village families to take advantage of both the pre-recorded and live session music classes, hopefully you will join me in having, “You can count on me like one, two, three”, stuck in our heads!