Erika Compton’s third grade class decided to take the melody of the Christmas tune Jingle Bells and write their own lyrics about how awesome it is to be in the third grade, all with the help of WGNA’s Richie Phillips.
Phillips, one-half of The Sean and Richie Morning Show on 107.7 WGNA, brought his music making talents to Compton’s classroom on Dec. 16, where he assisted her students in writing a song about the things they are currently learning.
With lyrics such as: `We are third grade kids/we’re learning science and math/they also teach us writing skills/that’s our learning path/work,work,work,` the children were able to learn how to form rhyming schemes and delve into basic music composition. Phillips, while assisting in writing lyrics, played along on his keyboard and added beats as well.
Compton sees this as a unique way of teaching her children to write.
`The thing that I like about it is that it’s, in my opinion, the most authentic learning experience I can give these kids,` she said. `They’re writing for a purpose and they have an authentic audience who’s going to listen to it. Not only that, you incorporate the musical component`there’s just so many things they get out of it: there’s the reading component, the writing component and the musical component.`
This is one of the many trips Phillips makes to local schools, as he said he makes a visit to one every two weeks and writes a song with the children.
`I do this all year round, even in the summer time.` he said, adding that with the recent focus from schools on bullying, he has made several songs with classes on the subject.
`I went to four different schools and we did four different bullying songs,` he said. `Then we had a contest. So we do all types of things.`
The Sean and Richie Morning Show involves a lot of musical parodies created by the two hosts, so Phillips decided to expand the segment into creating song parodies with children. He said he is impressed by the creativity of the students, especially Compton’s third grade class, who he said had already written half the song before he arrived.
`It’s amazing what they do come up with.`
Compton said he students and she started working on the song on Monday and began discussing which one would be appropriate for the holidays.
Settling on `Jingle Bells,` they came up with the last two lines of the song before Compton told her class to go home and think about what else they’d like to add to the song. One of her students when the extra mile.
`One of the students came back with an entire stanza written,` she said. `So that’s where we started. We didn’t use her stanza word for word, but he [Phillips] started with that, took bits and pieces, and taught them how to rhyme and taught them certain words rhyme better than other words and they put it together based on the structure she created. That was pretty neat.`
Phillips arrived at the school around 10:30 and the students were finished with the song well before 11:30 a.m. This surprised Phillips, but Compton knew her students were capable and said she was more proud than anything.
`I’m proud that they were so clear when they sang,` she said. `Here we are talking about communication skills, how well you can annunciate your words and how clearly you can speak.`
Even after he finished with the song, Phillips stuck around. He answered questions and handed out Hannaford hacky-sacks to all of the students and signed them, something Compton really appreciated.
Some of the children were really excited that they could participate and smiled at the fact they will be heard on the radio, which will, as they said, make them `famous.`
`I learned that singing is a talent,` said student Kayla Shannon. `It’s not only making beats, it’s singing the words and pronouncing them. It was really fun and I’m glad I got to experience this.`
Another student, Katelynn Prestipino enjoyed the experience of being able to create a song with her classmates and was appreciative of Phillips coming in and helping them out.
`I’d like to thank Richie Phillips for coming in here and taking the time to do this with us,` she said. `It was fun adding our own words and making up a song.`
The song will be played on radio show on Monday morning, will be posted on wgna.com, and will be played as the Sean and Richie holiday song.“