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North Tonawanda Intermediate teacher keeps school spirit alive

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NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — Kristie Keidel is the sixth grade at North Tonawanda Intermediate determined to keep her school’s spirit alive and she does it by making fun remixes to modern songs for her students.

“Music makes people happy. It makes you want to dance. It makes you want to move. It get's you in a good mood," Keidel said. "And I think that’s what everybody likes about it.”

Keidel has been putting together quarantine themed remixes for her students since the start of the pandemic. She takes songs like 'Watch Me' by Silentó and turns them into funny virtually learning themed lyrics.

Keidel's version of 'Watch Me:' Now watch we teach, while you go online. now watch me teach, teach, while you go online.

“I do a lot of math raps in class too, and I change the lyrics to concepts in math. So I kind of took that same idea and went with it for the quarantine parodies," she said.

Keidel said sometimes she stays up all night coming up with lyrics for her next song and her son said, "she works really hard on all this stuff just to put a smile on the students faces.”

But Ms. Keidel does not just go all out for her students, she goes all out for the entire school. In October she hosted the schools first virtual zoom party and she’s hosting another December 23.

“Yeah I usually just do it right from my driveway and everyone just joins on the screen," she said. "We’ll see how many we get tonight.”

While the school year has been anything but normal, Keidel’s students say this is a school year they will always remember.

“I really want everyone to know that us teachers, we are really doing whatever we can to make it engaging and useful for the kids at home," Keidel said. "We’re trying to take the load off of parents."