McDowell Mountain Elementary School was rocking last Tuesday night, Oct. 5. Parents and staff watched as the second-grade class performed four songs in their show called “A Year of Sports Fun.”

Richa Perkins, the elementary school music teacher for the past five years, started working with the second graders in the second week of school. As a special area teacher, she has a grade for a week before they rotate to another special area teacher.

Perkins said she only had two full weeks with the second-grade class at school, but the kids also practiced at home. Perkins created an online space where the students could get the music and listen to recordings as well.

The second-grade class had performed just once before, in March 2020. The concert came before the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, so they were the last to perform before and the first to perform after the hiatus.

Since this concert’s theme was sports related, Perkins asked her students to come dressed in fan apparel. The concert began with a football-themed song, “The Big Game.” It was quite appropriate, since a majority of the students wore Arizona Cardinals jerseys, although some out of state teams were represented.

The students followed up their first song with “Kick,” a soccer song, and “March Mania,” a basketball song. In between the songs, a student came to the front of the stage and announced the song title and spoke briefly about the sport.

The concert ended with the timeless “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” a baseball classic. The students sang the song like normal, but halfway through they started to use kazoos instead of their voices. They had so much fun that several students were still playing their kazoo when they met with their parents after the concert was over.

Before the pandemic, Perkins would have one concert each quarter at McDowell Mountain. After teaching kids the basics of music like vocabulary and rhythm, Perkins encourages them to perform and helps them knock out a public performance state standard requirement.

Normally the concert serves as an art show too, but because art teacher Tracy Perry is working with both the elementary and middle school, the art wasn’t ready before fall break. Perkins hopes students will be finished and able to share their work by the time the kindergarten class hosts its concert on Dec. 7.