Our First Grade Blues Band is in the North County Times Newspaper!

There is a great article about our performing 1st grade blues band in the newspaper. Our class members are all super excited to see their work be recognized and appreciated- and be interviewed by the local press!

We practiced our signature song “Sweet Home Chicago” for many weeks, to the point where we could feel confident playing in front of the 200 person audience at our talent show last Friday night. The girls rocked the house. Keep in mind, they are singing live with no backing vocal or music track other than the live guitar. This is old school, real music. No lip-syncing here!

Click HERE to read the article, and click HERE to watch the YouTube video of this band of 6 and 7 year old first grade students singing the blues in front of a sold out crowd at our very own Garrison Elementary School.

Also, please check out our website kidslikeblues.org. If you look over our site, you’ll see that we’re not just playing music; we are using music as a tool to teach the California State Language Arts and Performing Arts Standards. We also use our music to build a sense of belonging and community in our classroom. Many of the members of our band are very shy and learning English. By learning the songs, working with others, and performing in front of audiences, they are overcoming their fears about public speaking and becoming more fluent speakers, readers, and writers..

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Our Goal

Once we’ve used the music as a springboard to teach academic content standards, our goal is to take our work to completion by performing it onstage and recording it together in digital multitrack audio and video editing programs.

The students even learn how to operate programs like iMovie, Photoshop and Garage Band.

iMovie icon Photoshop icon GarageBand-icon

So far our performances have included playing a street fair, for a large audience of staff and students at the Cal State San Marcos College of Education and on local TV news and KPBS TV (watch these performances on our videos page). We're a real band, and we're learning and rocking! We have about ten songs in our repertoire.

For Your Further Interest

Check out these educational links, including Mr. Schwartz's approach to using fishing and hands-on science to motivate and engage students.

Social Connect

We invite you to use the Facebook & Twitter links above to get the very latest on our music and appearances.

Video: Sweet Home Chicago

Kids Like Blues Plays Sweet Home Chicago
Click video still to watch the Kids Like Blues Band music video, "Sweet Home Chicago."

Blues & Thematic Teaching


Click video still to view how our program works and details how we cover specific academic content standards.

In the News

We have been featured by US Dept. of Education, KPBS, and more. Click here to view what all the buzz is about.