The WHHS football team has officially made playoffs for the first time in ten years! We are so excited to have the opportunity to attend a couple of games in the near future and support our Cougar Family. Below are the dates that we currently have for after school rehearsals. All rehearsals are highly recommended, but not required.
10/26/20: 5 pm-7 pm 10/27/20: 5 pm-7 pm We will be enforcing social distancing policies along with health checks upon entrance. Masks are kept on for the entire duration of rehearsal unless they are playing on their instruments (applies to Wind Players Only). Please be subscribed to our Remind 101 for updates and possible changes due to inclement weather. See you tomorrow! -Ms. Hinds and Ms. Gonzalez
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I hope this finds you all healthy and happy! I am excited to formally announce the launch of the Cougar Band Camp 2020! This year's camp will be completely virtual for the health and safety of our students and staff but will include all of the fun, music, and camaraderie you are used to. Alongside the Leadership Team who has been working very hard to get things prepared, we are excited to have you join us for Band Camp 2020! Band camp dates are between August 3rd, 2020, and August 14th, 2020. Please see the agenda below for specific day-by-day details for our two-week band camp. We will be utilizing the Zoom App to conduct all virtual meetings and rehearsals. Students can log in using a laptop, phone, or other internet-capable devices to join the meeting. Please see the attachment for the links for each day! Alongside some full-group rehearsals and game nights, we will also be having smaller sectionals to help get everyone back into playing shape! If you have questions or concerns about being able to log-in please contact Ms. Hinds as soon as possible. Don't have an instrument, missing a supply, or does your summer instrument need a repair? No problem! Come to the school between 9:00 am and 2:00 pm on Monday, August 3rd for help from the directors. Please drive up to the Band Ramp on the backside of the school to where the band director station is and remain in your car. Ms. Gonzalez and Ms. Hinds will follow proper social distancing protocols and be able to help you with whatever you need! If this time doesn't work for you just email Ms. Hinds to set up an alternate time! The Cougar Band staff is committed to giving you the best possible experience possible! We are here to support you and your family during this crazy time, and to help any questions you may have about Band Camp and/or this coming school year. We can't wait to see you guys next week! *For text message updates please send a text to the number 81010 with the message @b4a2d4.* -- Students and parents are welcome to sign-up! -- Good Afternoon, Last week several members of the Cougar Band participated in leadership training, completed an application process, and did an interview to become a member of the 2020-2021 Cougar Band Leadership Team. We are excited to announce this year's team below! Thank you to everyone who participated in the process, and congratulations on earning a spot on the team. I know you all will do a great job in this coming year! For everyone who will be returning to Western Hills next year, please complete this very short Google Form so we can get a little more information for planning purposes. We will be sending out more information regarding band camp and the fall as soon as we can! 2020-2021 Planning Form https://forms.gle/Fp9TkkUNgQU6BDca7 Thanks, Ms. Hinds & Ms. Gonzalez Good Morning,
Hello Cougar Band - I miss you all! I hope you all are staying safe and healthy during this time. I wanted to take a moment today to give a few announcements for you guys that will hopefully get you excited about music! Meet the new assistant director! I am excited to announce that we have hired a new assistant to join the Cougar Band Fam - Ms. Hannah Gonzalez! She has already been hard at work helping prepare things for next year and getting to know our program, and she made this awesome video to get to meet you guys. Please check out her intro video to get to know Ms. Gonzalez! https://youtu.be/AzoDFrPBukE Leadership Training Along with Ms. Gonzalez, we are excited to announce that we will have virtual leadership trainings coming up July 6th, 7th, and 8th at 6:00pm via Zoom! These trainings are designed to go over a wide range of topics and skills including qualities and importance of leadership, how to set personal and group goals, how to build confidence and self-esteem, how to balance responsibilities, learn about servitude leadership, how to be a leader for the Cougar Band, and much more! We have designed these trainings to not only prepare you to be a leader in the Cougar Band, but also to learn and practice skills that will help you achieve in school, work, and beyond. We want to encourage everyone who is interested to join these sessions! Even if you are on the fence about leadership, these sessions will be fun and informative! A few answers to commonly asked questions:
Questions for Next Year With the start of online school registration beginning next week, I know we all have many questions going into next year. While I don't have all the answers I did want to take a moment to give you the information that I know. At this point in time the school district is working with all of the governing bodies of music and education (UIL, TMEA, TBA, TEA and more) along with the CDC and other medical communities to determine what music in the schools will look like for next year. This week they boards of the Texas agencies met with medical professionals in discussion with the intention of establishing rules and procedures to keep everyone as safe as possible. Next week, TMEA and UIL are hosting town hall meetings with directors all over the state to talk about more specifics - and Ms. Gonzalez and I, as well as our district administration, will be attending. We are currently preparing for next year the best way we can and are ready for several scenarios including: in-person instruction only, in-person and virtual instruction, virtual instruction only, and more. I suspect we will know more concrete information in the coming weeks, however, I want to reiterate to you all that the health and safety of everyone is our number one priority! We will adjust the normal band curriculum to fit the needs of the situation and will take every precaution to ensure the health and safety of everyone involved. If we have to do band in a very different way than has ever been done before, I assure you that we will figure it out! Regardless of the type of instruction, we will need to give or if we have to make major changes to our curriculum, I want you to know that you can enroll in band and we will do everything to ensure a safe and amazing experience for every student. Again, I don't know what the future holds for us - but I do know that I will be here for all of you guys no matter what! Please reach out to me with any questions, and I will do my best to answer or find the answer for you. Have a happy Friday! P.S. Check your email for the link to movement 3 of the marching show! Good Morning Calf Muscles! Check out the Charms email for specific information for this week, and the PDF below for a snapshot of our assignments for this week! I hope you you all are doing well! Please reach out through email and Remind, and engage in the FlipGrid for this week! Also, memes are fun... Ms. Hinds Good Afternoon Band!
We know this has been a scary time for everyone, and we hope you are all staying safe and healthy! In the hopes of creating a creative, artistic place for us to interact and make music together we have put together a FlipGrid for our band and the Leonard Longhorn Band! FlipGrid is an awesome place that allows you to make short videos and share them in a secure environment. We are going to be putting up a new topic each week to be able to post to and share awesome music! This is totally voluntary, but we hope it will be like bringing the comfort of the Band Hall to us all. Instructions are below, and we hope you will engage with us on FlipGrid! FlipGrid Instructions This week's topic is to show off something you have been working on! Whether it is a warm-up, new skill, solo, etude, pop song, etc. - play something you have been working on and share it with the group! Link: https://flipgrid.com/62dd9609 Password: Bandmusic3 -Ms. Hinds Good Afternoon Cougars! A Charms email was sent this afternoon with information on your band assignments for this week. Please take a look at those and check out our Google Classroom too! The PDF of the assignments are attached below. Please reach out with any questions you may have, and wash your hands! -Ms. Hinds Tomorrow 3.1.2020 from 2 pm - 5 pm is the only day you are able to come pick up instruments/equipment from the Band Hall! Please see our charms email for more information and checkout the specific instructions for tomorrow listed below. We need everyone to follow these instructions to make sure we are all safe. Text me on Remind 101 or email me back if you have any questions!
-Ms. Hinds Hey Band! With school officially resuming with online instruction on Monday, we will be utilizing Google classroom along with most of your other teachers. Please make sure you have added your correct band class! Here are the codes:
Wind Symphony/Symphonic Band (1st/2nd Period) – j2y2pvy IB Music (7th Period) – oxxoybk Beginning Band (8th Period) – 456t752 If you have not yet checked out the new school website, please go to whhs2020.weebly.com. There you can find all the information you need. Here are the instructions for google classroom directly from the website. Steps to Logging In: 1. Be sure you have reset your password 2. Log in using your email and new password - http://my.fwisd.org 3. Click on "Google Drive" to sign in to your Google Account 4. Visit classroom.google.com to find your class, and click the plus (+) sign in the upper right corner to join with a code. As always, we can be reached through email or remind if you have any questions! |
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October 2020
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