Bentley music teacher records nightly lullabies for students

By Jared Janzen

BENTLEY—One teacher at Bentley Primary School has been finding a special way to connect with her students as they transition into finishing the year learning at home.

Last week, music teacher Tillie Ehresman started posting videos of herself singing lullabies each weekday evening to the school’s Facebook page.

Ehresman, who’s taught at BPS since 2013, said she had two goals in creating the nightly lullabies.

“My main goal was so they would know I was still thinking of them and caring for them even though teachers aren’t seeing them at school,” she said. “My second goal was since not everybody feels comfortable singing, I wanted kids to have music available every day in their home.”

Her song selections have been a mix of familiar nursery rhymes like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb” along with introducing kids to songs that are less familiar, like “Baby Mine.” She accompanies herself on guitar as she sings.

She said she’s been receiving a positive response from students and families. One student even recorded her own lullaby video and sent it back to Ehresman.

“That really touched my heart,” she said.

While she did lots of musical performing when she was in high school and college, Ehresman said she’s more used to live performances than recorded ones. The biggest challenge for her has been not being too critical of herself when she listens back to it.

Ehresman said the past couple weeks had been a whirlwind for teachers, “but the dust is starting to settle.” She said she was grateful to work in the Halstead-Bentley School District because she feels like they’ve got a good plan to move forward.

For the rest of the school year, Ehresman and the other rotations teachers at BPS—library, STEAM, health and P.E.—are putting together weekly lists of activities for students to pick from. Some of her ideas for music activities include having students teach a family member a favorite song, ask a family member what their favorite song is and why, or clap rhythms to a family member and have them echo it back.

“It’ll be less about learning new things and more about reinforcing things they’ve already learned,” she said.

Ehresman plans to continue posting a lullaby at about 7 p.m. each evening, Monday through Friday, until the end of the school year.

“Unless I run out of songs,” she said. “I might have to get a little more creative.”

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