Hoedown At Stratford School

The proud performers includes dancers, a fiddler, gracious teachers, and talented students.

There was a hoedown for the kindergarteners and first graders of Garden City!

The program, "American Footsteps," was performed by Foot and Fiddle at Stratford Elementary on Tuesday, December 2nd. The performers shared the stage with student volunteers and a few brave teachers for a real square dance hoedown. All the students enthusiastically sang "Turkey in the Straw" and learned about the origins of American dances: clogging, Irish step dancing, jazz tap dancing and, of course, the national dance of square dancing. Mrs. Hogan, a Hemlock kinder-garden teacher, said, "I look forward to this assembly every year!" She even has a square dance of her own in the classroom!

The assembly began with an introduction to the joy of music and how it was spread throughout early America with a few  simple instruments, like the banjo and the fiddle. It concluded with a marvelous thought, "Find something you love to do. Learn it, because if it makes you smile, chances are, it will make someone else smile."

An American Footsteps dancer leads the students and a teacher in a square dance.

There were a lot of smiles on little faces in the Stratford auditorium!

This program was coordinated by the Arts in Education Committee of the Garden City PTA and GCUFSD Administration and funded by the Garden City Union Free School District.

The kindergartners make a circle of friends The whole Stratford auditorium enthusiastically sings, "Turkey in the Straw" A Garden City kindergarten teacher graciously shakes her partner's hand. A young excited child sits on the edge of her seat!