Composer of the Month: Billie Holiday

For the month of February, students in Second Grade studied the composer Billie Holiday. Billie Holiday was one of the very first black female composers of the Jazz genre, and became extremely famous for her ability to improvise. While Holiday grew up in a very difficult environment, bouncing from place to place until finally landing in a home with her aunt's mother-in-law, she was able to find solace in her musical ability and began singing public performances at the age of 14. She made her first record deal at the age of 18 and went on to become one of the most famous jazz singers of all time.

As part of our project studying Billie Holiday, students had were asked to complete three worksheets this month. For the first one, they were presented with a song by Billie Holiday and asked to draw a picture of what the song made them think of. For the second worksheet of the project, students were asked to complete a scavenger hunt, looking around the room at information posted about Holiday and writing the information they discovered about her. For the final worksheet, they were again asked to listen to music by Holiday and this time write a paragraph (using complete sentences) of what the song made them think of and WHY it made them think of this.

Here are some completed projects!