Context

Summer 2020 saw the Hastings Kiwanis club achieve its goal to install musical playgrounds at all eight Hastings elementary schools in Nebraska, despite coronavirus challenges. Children across the region will now be able to learn and play in a new and unique way thanks to the efforts of these volunteers.

Michael Howie, one of the three leaders on the project, said “The schools could choose either a Trio Ensemble or Soprano Quartet Ensemble. They could choose whichever ensemble made sense for them and their space. Hastings Public Schools all wanted the same or similar ensembles because the teachers work together across the curriculum. This way, it was more consistent.”

Installations

The first musical playground was installed at Zion Classical Academy, with Alcott and Longfellow elementary schools quickly following. Watson, Hawthorne, St Michael’s, and Lincoln elementary schools came next, with the eighth and final installation taking place at Adams Central Elementary School.

Howie said Hastings Kiwanis got “better every time” it installed a musical playground and that it took the group of about a dozen volunteers around five hours to install them. “Every installation was a little bit different, which I think is interesting and kind of fun,” Howie said. “Everybody has an idea of where the drum should go and where the tubular chimes should go.”

Result

Due to COVID-19, the musical playground project has unexpectedly taken on new importance with outdoor learning becoming a central part of each school’s efforts to maintain distance between pupils. Music teachers can bring students outside to learn. Tom Michalek, an elementary music specialist at Watson Elementary, said the playground has come at "just the right time".

“Once COVID happened and we learned that we would be teaching outside as much as possible, it was just a perfect fit,” Michalek said. “So many students have been isolated with just their own families, and often that creativity component kind of goes by the wayside. So this will be an excellent time to be outside and do some creating.”