Ukulele Rock Stars Come to Auburn Elementary

When Auburn Elementary music teacher Jenny Johnson decided to introduce strings into her elementary classroom, she chose the ukulele as a starting point. “The ukulele is one of the easier instruments to learn and it’s a great stepping stone to the guitar,” explained Johnson. “Also, it’s a less expensive instrument and it comes in fun colors!” She was right about the fun as evidenced by the screams of delight from her 5th graders on the day 30 ukuleles arrived in her classroom. “The students were so excited – they couldn’t wait to get started.”

Getting started for Johnson included finding the funds to purchase 30 ukuleles that would be shared by her 150 students. She turned to the online fundraising site, DonorsChoose.org and posted her idea. A nonprofit charity since 2000, DonorsChoose.org has facilitated funding for more than a half-million classroom projects across the United States. Teachers submit a description of their project and include funding needs and time frames. Any person can access the website and fund any project. When a project reaches its funding goal, DonorsChoose.org ships the materials right to the school. Projects can take months to reach their funding objective but it took only 48 hours to reach the $1800 funding goal that Johnson had set. “The response demonstrated how our community and families value music education and education as a whole,” said Auburn Elementary Principal BJ McCabe.

Johnson dubbed her project Ukulele Rock Stars and in her online narrative of the project, she wrote that “sitting in the music room, singing or listening to others play music is nice but limiting. All students deserve the opportunity to create their own music.” Further in her post she noted that “when students have their own instrument, they take real ownership and show true care for what they are learning.” She added that having a ukulele for each student during each class increased the time that each student could spend learning proper technique.

The students, including fifth-grader Shannon Hartrick, couldn’t wait to get started learning the instrument. “It’s like a mini guitar,” she said “and I’ve been wanting to learn to play the guitar. My dad plays the piano and my sisters play the flute – now I’ll be playing the ukulele!”