Ramsay School’s Original Musical Tribute to Canada | Canada 150

Aug. 01, 2017


​Ramsay School Grade 3 and 4 students worked with their student teacher Rebecca Coram and teacher, Jill MacLeod to create lyrics and music for a tribute song to Canada in honour of the up-coming 150th birthday.  Students worked in small groups to discuss and document ideas from these two guiding questions: “Who are we as Canadians?” and “What should Canada look like in the future?”  Coming together, students discussed their ideas, and democratically created a title that they all agreed upon.  The song became, We Stand Together”.  This inspired more ideas to add to the increasingly long list of lyric suggestions.  Students played with rhyme and created couplets using the “most important” ideas. The work then began on the music itself.  Students learned that songs have musical parts and that there are many different structures from which musicians can choose. Miss Coram played her guitar to illustrate the options and students agreed on a structure for their song. With much excitement, the song came together into its final form.

Students performed their original song and recorded it to share with other proud Canadians!  As an avid contributor to the lyrics, eight year old Izzy clearly articulated her thoughts, “I liked the message of the song. It talks about being brave and deciding things together.  That’s how we wrote it; we worked together, shared ideas and agreed on the best version.  That’s being Canadian.” 

Ramsay School’s original musical tribute to Canada
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