Elm City Montessori Welcomes Winter Through Song

Students, families, and teachers bundled together in the subfreezing temperature at Elm City Montessori School (ECMS) to lift their voices in song during the school’s eighth annual Winter Sing — which played out as candles flickered, under the silhouette of West Rock.

The event was organized by the Family Teacher Organization and co-produced by parent volunteers of A Broken Umbrella Theatre. Principal Julia Webb opened the prekindergarten and kindergarten concert on Thursday evening, welcoming families to ECMS and setting the stage for the young performers. ​“Our kids are coming up here as their own unique selves,” she said. ​“That doesn’t mean perfection, it means individuality and a little bit of creativity.”

Before the festivities commenced, Director of Anti-Bias Anti-Racism at ECMS Sade Jean-Jacques summarized the school’s holiday curriculum. ​“We’ve been learning about how winter holidays are celebrated across the world, including Kwanzaa. We recently read The People Remember [by Ibi Zoboi], which explores the legacy of the enslaved people who laid the foundation for the holiday.”

Jean-Jacques passed the microphone to Dr. Siobhan Carter-David, a professor of history at Southern Connecticut State University and an ECMS parent, who presented the history of the holiday and its seven core Swahili principles.

“Umoja, meaning unity, is to strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race. Kujichagulia, meaning self-determination, is to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.”

With each principle, Carter-David lit one of seven candles on her kinara, a candle holder displaying red, black, and green — the colors of blood shed in the pursuit of freedom, people of African descent, and the fertility of land.

“This is a tradition for my family,” Carter-David, who is the parent of an ECMS fifth grader, said of the Winter Sing. She’s attended every year. ​“While the concert is not focused on holidays, it helps us get into the holiday spirit,” she said after the concert.

Fifth graders Corinne Scott and Avery Beard emceed the primary school concert, laying out the rules for the evening. ​“No food until after the show,” stated Corinne, referring to the Sophie Café, Ramen Station, and La Chalupa trucks catering the event.

Avery asked that phones be switched to silent, and that posed photos be taken at a makeshift booth constructed behind the audience.

The Sassafras class, composed of kids aged three to six, kicked off the night with ​“Walking in a Winter Wonderland.” The students erupted into giggles as they arranged themselves on the stage. 

Throughout the song, a few students found the courage to lean in a bit closer to their shared microphones, offering quick solos that revealed the class’s wide vocal range.

Sassafras was followed by the Mulberry class, who sang ​“Four Pretty Expressions” and ​“Se Essa Rua Fosse Minha,” a Brazilian lullaby sung in Portuguese.

The Cherry class explored body percussion in ​“Earth is Our Mother,” an acapella song often attributed to the indigenous Hupa tribe of North Carolina that recognizes the earth, sky, rivers, and forests as kin.

The Maple class then kept the beat going with an egg shaker accompaniment to ​“Mi Burrito Sabanero” and ​“Jingle Bells.”

Hickory was the final primary class to perform. Fragments of conversations, ranging from ​“It’s too bright!” to ​“I wanna talk into the mic!” reverberated through the microphones as the class lined up to sing ​“Mr. Winter Bee.”

Despite a few initial technical difficulties, the Hickory class tackled the song with full force, singing with the zeal of a honeybee fluttering its wings. In the spirit of the song, one student, front and center, flapped fabric wings sewn into her dress and draped over her wrists.

As they exited the stage, Hickory students waved goodbye, one going as far as to whisper into the mic, ​“Thank you, thank you very much,” in the vein of rock legend Elvis Presley.

“When picking our song for Winter Sing, we try to find something different that relates to the kids’ interest,” said Esther Wallace, the primary assistant in the Hickory classroom, after the concert. ​“Recently, we had an educator from Common Ground come in who talked about bees, and the kids were just fascinated. So, when I came across ​‘Mr. Winter Bee,’ I knew we had found our song.”

To close the first of two concerts of the evening, the tables turned as the ECMS Family Teacher Organization (FTO) took the stage to sing ​“We Are the World” by eighties supergroup U.S.A. for Africa, inviting the audience to sing along.

“We are the world / We are the children / We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving,” they sang. One organizer had learned the song in American Sign Language, and proceeded to sign along as she sang.

Staff members followed with ​“Light a Candle for Peace,” before turning it over to former ECMS FTO President LaToya Howard.

“Clearly, we’re good at planning events, but not so much as singing,” Howard laughed. ​“Thank you all for coming! Please grab some food from the trucks, and we hope to see you again in half-an-hour for the Elementary and Erdkinder Winter Sing.”

During the break, ECMS parent Rosabelle Conover reflected on what the concert meant to her family. ​“We’ve been here for three years, and this event always makes us feel a strong sense of community — especially for me, because I don’t always get to see the other parents.”

For Principal Webb, the community event is a personal favorite. ​“You really feel the joy and the love. Here at ECMS, we often think of ourselves as a light in the darkness, and this event really embodies that,” the principal said, gesturing to the stars that had settled in for the night.

Corinne, who has emceed the primary school concert since she was first eligible in first grade, shared a similar sentiment. ​“I really like hearing the messages in each song, hearing the different languages, and just bopping along to the beat. It’s all very inviting and open — it feels like a second Thanksgiving, or Christmas already!”

Webb, Jean-Jacques, and Carter-David opened the second half of the evening with a similar introduction and presentation to ECMS Elementary and Erdkinder families.

The Cedar class roused the crowd with ​“A Million Dreams” from the 2017 musical film The Greatest Showman, enunciating the final word of each lyric with extra twang. According to Corinne, older students have the privilege of selecting their own songs for Winter Sing, regardless of their relevance to the season.

Following performances by the Willow, Chestnut, and Gingko classes, it came time for Corinne to join her class in singing Stevie Wonder’s ​“Three Little Birds,” ​“a small song with a big message” according to a student representative who introduced the song.

Uplifting one another and finding strength in one’s self were common themes throughout the night, specifically in the Pine class’s rendition of NSYNC’s ​“Better Place” and Elton John’s ​“I’m Still Standing.”

The ECMS student choir, featuring singers across grades, followed the class arrangements with ​“Scarborough Fair,” before being joined on ukulele by the Sycamore class for a rousing performance of ​“White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes.

The school’s most passionate singers sang with their chests out and chins up, proudly showcasing the latest addition to their repertoire. ​“Guys, that was so good!” whispered one student as the choir exited the stage.

Director of Finance and Operations Florisca Carter serenaded the audience with ​“Let There Be Peace On Earth,” the ​“first song I was asked to sing in church when I was growing up in Dominica,” before joining her fellow ECMS staff members to close the event with another performance of ​“Light A Candle For Peace.”

“Gatherings like this happen because we believe in the power of families,” said Magnet Resource Teacher and FTO Member David Weinreb. ​“We trust our families to engage in big work, we cherish their contributions to our community, and we believe any school with a supported family organization can do this!”