Hello my friends,

As of June 30, 2025, I will have retired from Dearborn Public Schools. I have been honored to teach music to thousands of students over the years. Some of my former students have crossed my path again, as new teachers in the district, paraprofessionals, and substitute teachers. I even had one share a music composition with me and we were able to set up a sight reading of the composition with the Redford Civic Symphony Orchestra.

If you are interested in keeping in touch just send me a message before the end of the month and I will give you my email address. You can also find me on social media. I am “Live Essentially Refreshed” on Instagram and Celeste Reed (Celeste Cordonnier Reed) on facebook.

(Cake image is from the Music Department Retirement Celebration)

My dear parents and students,

It has been a tough decision and something I have labored over for many months, but my husband and I have decided it is time for me to retire, and June 6, 2025 will be my last day.  I had really expected to continue teaching for another 4 years or so, because I love it so much at Howe.  However, out of a sense of fairness to everyone, and the desire and need to be with my mom more, this is the right time to retire.  I am very excited about the possibilities retirement brings. And, just the same, I am so sad to be saying goodbye to everyone.  I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching the wonderful students in every building I have worked at in Dearborn (18 in total). However, I am very thankful for the last 3 years here at Howe.

I am still non weight bearing so I am not certain when I will be returning to work this semester. I miss all of my students and hope things are going well in the music room for them while I am out. If the surgeon’s predictions are correct, it will be an 11 or 12 week recovery which would imply a mid-May or end of May return.  I will keep you posted.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Reed

On Friday we will have an all school sing along! We unfortunately do not have enough room to invite parents to this so we will be live streaming some parts of it on our schools Instagram page! You must be a follower of @howemontessoriandsped to see us go live and watch the video! We will stream a couple parts throughout the hour sing along. Reminder that this is not a concert …. this is simply a fun sing along to end our week and get us excited for holiday break. Special thanks to Mrs. Reed for planning and preparing the students.

Remember to send your child in holiday pjs on Friday so we can all match at the sing along.

VERY IMPORTANT—- The first day back in January- Monday the 6th is a HALF DAY with 11:30 am dismissal! Please make note of this!

I am available for parent teacher conferences in person or via zoom on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2:00-8:00, and Thursday, Nov. 14, 3:30-6:30.  My available times vary so please send me an email (reedc@dearbornschools.org) and let me know an approximate time frame and I will reply with time slots that I have available within your time frame.

I look forward to meeting with you soon.

I have happy news! Our Donors Choose project has been fully funded!!

I am looking forward to receiving these musical resources soon. Our students will be so excited to use them. I am grateful to everyone who was able to support this project through a donation or through sharing the link with others who were able to donate.

Hello! Please take a moment to share this link (click on the word link) with friends and family who might be interested in helping out with this project. The project expires Dec. 20 and we are about half way there. Yay! Every little bit is helpful and very much appreciated. It would be great to have the project funded before Thanksgiving break.

Here is a link to an older post with more detail.

We have had a few donations made to our project on Donors Choose so we are getting closer to our goal. 😀 Please consider making a donation or sharing this with friends and family who might be interested in contributing. Click here to read my first post. This post also includes a link to the DonorsChoose project: Picking, Playing, and Dancing

All of our students in grades 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade will be playing recorders this year. I have attached a PDF of the recorder letter which I will be sending home the week of Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024. All of our 3rd grade students will need to send in the order form with cash to purchase a recorder. Students who are in grades 4 and 5 will only need to purchase a recorder if they have lost their original recorder or are new to

Last year we had a lot of fun with the Recorder Karate challenge. Many of our students were very close to earning all 9 Recorder Karate Belts. A few of our students were making good progress on Recorder Karate Belts Level 2 and 2 students did learn all 9 of those songs! How many students will earn all 9 level 1 and all 9 level 2 songs this year?

our 4th and 5th grade students will also have the opportunity to work with the Sopranino and Alto recorders as well as Ukulele. We have so much going on this year and so little time since our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students have music only once per week instead of twice per week.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions.

We have a new project in Donors Choose. As you can see by clicking on the link, this project will help us prepare well for our Spring Concert Dance. If you have friends or family who are interested in showing support please share the link with them. Every little bit helps us get closer to reaching our goal.

Our Spring Concert will actually be a combination of song and dance with some orff instruments, too. Some of the classes will present song game dances but we will also do some circle and longways set dances in which we would encourage everyone to join in on. It should be a lot of fun for everyone from Montessori, Special Ed, Parents, Staff. Put on your dancing shoes and join us this Spring!

Click on the picture to open the project details. Thank you for sharing and supporting our project.