WINNSBORO – Featuring catchy rap lyrics and quirky dance steps by some of the County’s finest, a fun and wildly entertaining rap video produced by Fairfield Magnet School art teacher Kimi Daly’s first and second graders, extols the service provided by the County’s first responders.
The idea for the video came to Daly as part of the school district’s Opening Minds to Academics and the Arts (OMA) program. The theme for this year’s OMA classroom study is Community.
“To help my first and second graders learn about and better understand Community, I integrated music, dance and language arts into the classroom art work,” Daly said. “For the focus of our study of Community, I choose our county’s first responders and military personnel.”
After creating, from boxes, a church, school, store, police car, helicopter, ambulance and other emergency facilities and vehicles, Daly asked her students to draw pictures of the uniformed emergency personnel who serve the county and the equipment they use.
“I also wanted to make the learning fun, so I wrote a rap that I felt would help the students remember what they learned about these first responders. As I wrote, I interjected questions and statements from the students about emergency situations, like, ‘What do I do if someone breaks into my home?’ I wanted them to sing and dance it and believe it so they would pass it on,” Daly said. “From there the kids and I recorded the audio.
“We talked about what emergency personnel do and how they each help us – but I heard things like, “What’s inside of an ambulance” and “Police shoot people.” So I wanted to go beyond the classroom and invited some of our first responders and military personnel to visit us at school and bring their vehicles and equipment for the kids to see,” Daly said. “The emergency personnel talked with my kids about their jobs, and the kids responded. The first responders really had fun and were soon dancing along with the kids as I videoed. That was the beginning of the rap video.”
Daly said a couple of the students actually spoke the rap with her, and the video, for the most part, features the kids and the responders.
Then Daly put the 4 minute, 23 second video together.
“I edited it over spring break. That’s all I did during vacation,” she said, with a half-smile and an exaggerated sigh of relief. “I’ve been living and breathing this video. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun for me and for the students.”
Viewing the video, which is both educational and highly entertaining, it appears to have been lots of fun for the first responders, too, as they largely shed their public personae as first responders and are seen dancing and miming with abandon, as they try to keep up with the first and second graders’ fancy footwork.
On May 24, Daly is holding a showing of the video for the parents, kids, the first responders, school personnel, and other interested parties. We will also have on display all the art work the students created for their study of Community.
“As a result of making the video, I think the kids have a whole new perspective on our emergency and military personnel and what they do for us,” Daly said. “Plus, the kids made lots of new friends through the process of creating the video. When they see these first responders on the street, now, they’re going to recognize them and maybe give them a hug,” Daly said. “But, more than that, I think they’ll appreciate what these first responders can do for them if there’s an emergency.
“My hope is that the video will go viral, carrying our message of trust and appreciation for our emergency personnel all over the world. We hope everyone will come to our showing on May 24,” Daly said.
