#26 Literature - Updated 12/16
Topics
(Just click on the category you want to view)BOOKS: Alphabetical List ----Big Books (Giant Books) ----Chapter Books----Christmas Books ----Top 40 or So (favorites)
Books about Instruments ----BOOKS with Song Texts ----BOOKS with Accompaniment Music ----Books with Repeated Text
BOOKS for Upper Elementary
----Ideas for Integration
----Plays, Scripts
----Enhancing Reading
----Song Stories for the Very Young
----Websites
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BOOKS: Alphabetical List
10/01 OH, A-HUNTING WE WILL GO by John Langstaff and pictures by Nancy Winslow Parker, Atheneum Macmillan Publishing. It starts with the fox and then has 10 other rhymes.It is good for the ESL classes I teach.------
10/04 A HUNTING WE WILL GO which is actually a big book I made. I used the pics from the Kdg book in the Share The Music series, and developed two pages for each animal. The children have to guess what the animal was "put in" before I turn the page and reveal if they were right or not.Good for Speech or Rhythmic Echoes
01/02 ABIYOYO - Pete Seeger I've used it lots of ways every year...sometimes when singing lullabies!! (Abiyoyo is actually an African lullaby and recorded in one of the new K or l or 2 music texts...can't remember which)...there's a great Reading Rainbow video of this with Pete Seeger reading and singing (it's actually his story). This is also a great story to dramatize...and to discuss poor choices/courage/ostracizing/power of music/ukeleles/etc....This story was on ancient Seeger album but I could never use it because of his one profanity in it....Kids love this story and they have lots of discussion questions about where is the mother?...and how the boy felt when his father tricked other people.
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01/02 ABIYOYO I read it to the first graders every year! I have students on glockenspeils for the magic wand, agogo bells for the clink clunk of the ukelele and bass bars for the giants footsteps. All the students sing and dance and take turns playing the instruments for sound effects.
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01/07 ABIYOYO I have two first grade classes who are "exploring" the book Abiyoyo in music class. Since it fits so well with the spirit of the season, I thought I would share. The first part of the story with the little boy plucking his ukelele we acted out by a student plucking an autoharp. Then when his dad makes things disappear we talked about how to make sound disappear and so each time his dad "zoops" something, my student plays the autoharp with no bars pressed and then makes the sound disappear by dampening the stringss. We also act it out. The sheep and the cow being eaten by Abiyoyo we act out by a student covering up with either cow or sheep fabric. When Abibyo eats him up, he throws back the fabric and jumps out. I made up a little song instead of the Pete Seeger song for the kids to sing so that we can put Orff instruments to it when the little boy is trying to get Abiyoyo to dance. The boomwhackers play G and D as an alternating bordun in an introduction (that's Abiyoyo's footsteps), we sing the song with the xylophones playing a bordun. The interlude is nonpitched percussion playing the rhythm of the words with the audience calling out what the townspeople yelled: "Run for your life." or "Get out of town." We have cue cards for the audience. And finally the dance is a shadow dance with first graders moving to the rhythm of In The Hall of the Mt. King behind a sheet. They make a scary pose on the long notes.
SONG: g g g g g g g e d d ta ti ti ti ti ti ti ta ta ta-a Old Abiyoyo came to town
g g g g g b d' ti ta. ta. ti ti ta ta-a (ta. = dotted quarter) Ugly as he can be.
e' d' b g b g e d all ta's We won't run and we won't frown
b b g e e d g g ti ti ta ti ti ta ta ta-a-a Abiyoyo you don't scare me.
We just put a g-d bordun to it with cabasas playing the steady beat. The interlude are the boomwhackers playing a broken g-d bordun to sound like abiyoyo's footsteps with audience participation saying "run for your lives." (first interlude) "get out of town" (second interlude) and I'm sure you could go on and on. - Cathy Harvey
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ABIYOYO 06/05 Reading Rainbow has a great DVD to go with the story.
Across the Nullabor (very Australian...)
Aida. III. L. Dillon & D. Dillon. San Diego, CA: Gulliver.Price, L.(1990)
All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir by Bill Staines This a favorite of my kids, fast tempo, many animals "....and some just clap their hands, or paws, or anything they got now!"
All I See. III. P. Catalanotto. New York: Orchard.Rylant, C. (1988)
America The Beautiful by Katharine Lee Bates
AMAHL & THE NIGHT VISITORS with Michelle LeMieux as illustrator and Menotti as author. It is WONDERFUL.
Amazing Grace: The Story Behind the Song. Brookfield CT: Millbrook.Haskins, J. (1992)
ANANSI THE SPIDER Raffi has a great song about Anansi - We use instruments to signify the "head was spinning" with grades 1-2, and a drum for the falling. There are a variety of instruments you can use for "walking, walking", including woodblocks. In kindergarten, I use vocalizations instead of instruments.
Animal Fair. New York: Holiday House.Steven, J. (1981).
ANIMAL BOOGIE, THE by Debbie Harter, (includes CD) Good for creative movement
Animal Orchestra...Nick Sharrott (Lift the flap/ Animal sounds)
Apt. 3 by Ezra Jack Keats
Arturo's Baton by Sid Hoff
At the Zoo. III. V. Michaut. New York: Doubleday.Simon, P. (1991).
BABY RATTLESNAKE Te Ata - Native American folktale about a snake who doesn't have a rattle. After much crying and whining he gets his wish and proves he is too young to have a rattle. Students can use beat boxes to create rhythmic combinations of ta's and ti's (snake and rattle) to play each time snake rattles. // I've used this with K's and first graders, too, usually in November when I do my Native American unit. It's a great story to use different voices and instruments! They can rattle like the snake, cry when the baby rattlesnake cries, say "SHHHH", and say "HA" with the Indian princess!
Baby Beluga, Raffi, illus. by Ashley Wolff, New York: Crown.Raffi. (1992).
Barn Dance! III. T. Rand. New York: Henry Holt.Martin, B., Jr., & Archambault, J. (1986)
THE BAT BOY AND HIS VIOLIN by Gavin Curtis, Ill. by E.B. Lewis is a wonderful book. It's about a boy who loves to play the violin. His father is the manger of the last place Negro Baseball team. (This takes place the last year of the Negro Baseball league.) The father wants the boy to be more athletic, the boy wants his father to hear his music. The music the boy plays in the dugout inspires the team to make a run on the championship.
BEAR SNORES ON, a picture book activity (first grade) I know experienced music teachers will have no need for my detailed plan, but I am offering it because so many of our newer teachers continue to have questions about specific ways to use literature in their classes.
Ben's Trumpet by Rachel Isadora
BEN’S BIRTHDAY PRESENT (CD) A story about a young boy who gets a music box for his birthday from his grandmother. When he tries it on his birthday, it doesn't work. The boy hides his disappointment from his grandmother and puts the box away. Eventually, the box works and what magic arises. But here's the way cool part.... There are 11 piano solos, each played by a child between the ages of 10 and 16. The solos are part of the story and beautifully woven in. Here's how I tried it out today. I had my kids fold an 11" x 18" piece of white paper into 8ths and number them from 1-11 (they had to use the back). As the story was narrated, the kids drew something from the narration that struck their fancy (I don't want to give away the story, but a few items that my kids drew today were: a moustache, ballet shoes, etc). Each part of the story was further enhanced by the solo. The kids LOVED this activity! It took just about 40 minutes for the story and music to be read. -- Becky Luce
BERLIOZ THE BEAR by Jan Brett It's easy and fun to add a recording of "Flight of the Bumblebee" after reading the book. It's also a good opportunity for a first-grade level lesson on strings. -- Connie Herbon Try the story book Berlioz the Bear. It's a PERFECT leadin for "Flight" -- Judy Schneider Berlioz The Bear is an amusing tale of the mishaps encountered by a band of bears who take their show on the road. In the video, viewers go behind the scenes at The Boys Choir of Harlem. - http://www.jwpepper.com/3299859.item
BERLIOZ THE BEAR - Lesson for video: "Berlioz the Bear" http://www.stlsymphony.org/media/pdf/cp/video/bear.pdf
BERLIOZ THE BEAR I use "Flight of the Bumblebee" with Berlioz the Bear each year.? I have the girls hold a scarf in each hand, plant their feet like roots of a flower and then wave the scarves slowly and smoothly.? We color bees on plain pieces of paper and cut them out.? The boys are the bees and buzz around the flowers.? Then we switch places. I've also used ZooPal bee plates when I have a class small enough (I only have 8 bees!)--- Tracy King Tracy King http://www.musicbulletinboards.net
BILLY GOATS GRUFF I have a book called "Jazz Chant Fairy Tales" author is Carolyn Graham, Pub. Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-434298-0 that tells Grimm stories (including "Goats") in a repetitive, metrical text, which I've used for 6th grade productions for primary grade audiences. It comes with a tape (O.K. for introduction, but a little cheesy for some kids). Stories: Goldilocks, Little Red..., Chicken Little, ...Goats..., Three Little Pigs, Little Red Hen, Rumplestiltskin, The Fisherman and His Wife. The parts are written out like a play, all chant, and the author has written a couple of other Jazz Chant books. - Becky Dougan There's an article on Billy Goats Gruff in a '99 issue of the Orff Echo. I'm sorry I don't have the specific month, but I just saw the article title in a class assignment last night. If you have access, it could be helpful
Bimwili and the Zimwi Verna Aardema. The story of an African child who is kidnapped by the Zimwi and forced to sing inside of a drum
THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF: I used this story as a sound story with my Kinders. It worked well. I used the ratchet for the Troll, woodblocks for trip-trap trip-trap, shaken tambourine for the word "bridge", and the three billy goats were glockenspiels for "smallest", soprano xylo for "medium", and alto xylo for "biggest". ----- Suzanne Jenkins I think I would use speech parts that repeat instead of songs for this one. I d write them on sentence strips and hold them up at the right time. ---- Martha Stanley
BILLY GOATS GRUFF COSTUME: I'm doing a version of that play as well and the book suggests using paper
plates with the middles cut out and horns attached to the top. Here is the link to what I'm doing. There is an example on the cover. I have a packet of stick masks from teacher's friend publications. The kit has four masks with handles, a reproducible story and play, 8 page teaching guide ---- Becky Melhaus
BLUE HAT, GREEN HAT Today I used the book "Blue Hat, Green Hat" by Sandra Boynton with my kinders. It went [well]! Before I read it, I asked them to pat the words blue hat, green hat. We talked about how many sounds they had to pat. Then I flipped to a phrase with yellow. They had to figure out how many sounds to pat and if it was the same or different from the other words. Next I read as they patted the rhythm for all the words except “OOPS!”. They had to clap each time for Oops. We have played boomwhackers before, so we transferred the colors to boomwhackers. I used my xylophones for blue since booms don't have a clearly defined blue and today we played D. They had to choose instruments for the Oops part. We ended up with my ratchet, wave drum, and shekere. (All VERY loud!). I read through it again and each color played their rhythms for the book. It sounded very controlled, which is always a bonus with kindergartners! -- Delynne in AR
BOB by Tracey Campbell Pearson Published by Farrar Straus Giroux, New York ISBN 0-374-39957-3; Pair it with: Hoe-Down from Rodeo by Aaron Copland , Track 11 ~ Time: 3:29 Classical Jukebox, Vol 1 Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy Conducting; I am using the Classical Jukebox recording because it is the longest of those I listened to. I had to spend a fair amount of time "rehearsing" the reading in order to get it down to 3 minutes and 29 seconds. If you listen a few times, the music really coordinates well with the page turns. But you have to keep moving along to finish in 3:29! I'll use the book w/recording to introduce the story to the children. Over the entire farm unit, we'll use the book without the recording for vocal exploration (meow, woof, ribbit, moo, cock-a-doodle-do, whoo, yumm-yumm bugs!). Contributed by Leslie Bakkum
Both Sides Now, Joni Mitchell, illus. Alan Baker (Bryron Preiss)
BOUNDLESS GRACE The Sequel book to "Amazing Grace" is another good book. It talks about
what a family is. Grace goes to Tanzania to visit her father who has remarried and she learns some things about the culture. Neat book.
10/02 BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS: I have SBG Music Connection. First grade book has the Brementown Musicians, and I have the big book with clings. We listened to the story, as I read it from a Scholastic paperback I have. Then I taught them the melodic motive repeated in the music series' version. "I'm off to join the band, the Brementown band!" Do-Fa-Fa-Do-Do-Fa, Do-Re-Re-Mi-Fa!I used only notes C and F on the glocks. Each time they heard that motive, they played those notes on the glock...then when each animal reacted to the robber's return, they were allowed to play for the animal.
01/02 BRINGING THE RAIN TO KAPITI PLAIN is another bk. that lends itself well to
acting out by an entire class. one year a 3rd gd. class did this in a
program. toga-costumes like seen in the book were made from bed sheets brought
in by the kids. animal paper plate masks for the other students, and we had a
"wife" come join the main character at the end and all stood, took off masks,
and sang a song in Swahili.
I have used "Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain" with instruments to
teach sequencing. Because it is a cumulative book and is easiley predicted
and anticipated, it's easy to add instruments to key parts that recur.
BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR - Eric Carle We will read Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle. I then sing it to them using the tune Twinkle, Twinkle...works perfectly. They sing the answers with me the 2nd time around. After this, we form a circle and sing the song using bean bag animals as the subjects. Each child gets a bean bag animal, I have dozens, and I begin. If I am holding a purple cow, then we all sing, "Purple cow, purple cow what do you see?" Then I sing, "I see a brown dog looking at me." The child who is holding the brown dog, then sings the name of another animal after we sing the question. We go all around the circle until everyone has been sung to and the last child sings, "I see all the animals looking at me."The next music class, we will repeat this game song but using zoo plates. The next class, we will review with the book, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear! If you don't have any bean bag animals or plates...they could hold a picture or better yet, draw a picture of what they like! Maybe they could bring a favorite stuffed animal from home. - Contributed by Kristin Lukow-- [email protected] To the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."We use Zoo Pals plates. Every child has a different plate. I get the Brown Bear one! Then we start with the class singing the first line of words above. I sing the next line and insert the name of another animal plate held by one of the children. I put my plate down because my turn is over while the class asks the question again and the next child chooses another animal plate. The kids love this. I have bought several sets of plates over the years and have never had one torn! I use this with pre-school through the beginning of second grade. Last year my 8th graders saw the stack of plates and wanted to play the game too! You never know what's gonna ring their bell! -- Rita Oglesby The next day, you could replace it with student's names. Allison, Allison, who do you see? I see Matthew smiling at me. -- Rhonda Schilling add a simple orff accomp on the BX - Do So Do So on the steady beat. Then the person that sings "I see.....smiling at me" becomes the person > playing the instrument. You could also add a triangle or something at the end of each sentence. -- Rhonda in WI I read the story "Brown Bear" with K today and then pulled out my
puppet Mr. Maestro. (Actually a villain puppet, but I moved his eyebrows so they don't point down, and pushed the hook on his nose back into the seam, and voila! top hat, cape, great big mouth to sing with!) I then had each student come up, shake his hand and introduce themselves. We sang Maestro, Maestro, who do you see? and I sang back I see ____________ looking at me. Very fun and I also taught them how to shake hands and speak clearly and the correct way to introduce themselves. Who says we don't teach life skills? (The pitches I sing are so mi so mi so so la so) -- Linda Barnhart
BROWN BEAR Brown Bear Brown Bear what do you see, etc also works with the melody of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. -- Laurie in Jax
Buffalo Girls. New York: Crown.McCarthy, B. (1987)
BY THE LIGHT OF THE HALLOWWEN MOON by Caroline Stutson, Kevin Hawkes, ill., Ages 3-8, Puffin Books ISBN 0-14-055859-4; Good for singing, echoes, etc.,
Call Down the Moon: Poems of Music by Myra Cohn Livingston
CAPS FOR SALE by Esphyr Slobodkina and it comes with a
tape. ISBN 0-694-70004-5. The tape is a narration of the story with some
original music. I had seen this story acted out at a workshop years ago
and it was great fun. She happened to have lots of the hats- just the
same as the pictures in the book. She used sol mi for the chant Caps for
sale, caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap. The melody for the peddler talking
to the monkeys who have stolen all his caps goes like this. do'(half
note)do'solsol(two eighths quarter). sol sol sol la sol
(quarter quarter quarter quarter whole) words are: You monkeys you! Give
me back my caps!
Although I wrote it for preschool, I'm sure my first graders
would be okay with it if they were doing the book in their
classroom. For first grade, I'd change the tune in Part I to
s m s m s m-l s m and add la to the pitch inventory.
CAPS FOR SALE book + laminated paper caps
modeled after the style in the story and in colors from story,
small hula hoop or other item for "middle"
CHATO’S KITCHEN by Gary Soto - I have some ideas (do the mambo, make rhythm chains with the Mexican food names (frijoles, guacamole, arroz, etc.) add some sound effects for the scurrying mice, the funky cats, and the dog (using Latin percussion, of course) but any other suggestions would be gratefully accepted! I'm thinking of writing two tunes to go with this-one to be sung by the "cool cats" about how cool they are, the other about how nice to eat mice! - Contributed by Dianne Park
CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM I turn this into a rhythm unit with ostinatos layered in first grade around March. Take "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" titi titi ta ta (Can add "will there be enough room" for an 8 beat pattern) Add "A told B and B told C" ta ta ta ta ta ta ta rest. Add "Skit skat skoodle doodle flip flop flee" ta ta titi titi ta ta ta rest. Teach each pattern verbally, lead into notation discovery, play on instruments, use a different timbre for each pattern, practice layering in ostinatos in any order, try switching orders, let each group of children work with each pattern. It really helps build rhythmic security. - Contributed by Carol Hallberg
Chicken in a Fencepost
01/07 THE CINNAMON BEAR: The Cinnamon Bear. It's got the audios from the old radio show, the new book, the old coloring book, the new coloring book, and more.
12/09 CLICK CLACK MOO: COWS THAT TYPE For older grades like 2nd or 3rd I might change the sticking pattern to all eighths or something a little more challenging, maybe something that did not necessarily match the words, though I'd have a few students play the easy pattern on the drum. --- D. Brian Weese
CLOUD DANCE by Thomas Locker, Voyager Books, Harcourt, Inc. Good for creative movement;
COCKY'S CIRCLE LITTLE BOOKS "This is a series of little books available here (cheaply and in supermarkets!) which could have been specifically designed for us! Titles include "Number Nine Bus; The Brave Little Mouse; Ten Little Caterpillars, Across the Nullabor (very Australian...) and many others. e.g. Folk Material - Some of the Kodaly Music people here have published blackline master drawings of the folk materials used in the school programmes which teachers can then colour and sing to their classes - e.g. Mama Buy me a China Doll; Pudding Bag; Chicken in a Fencepost; Hush Little Baby. However, if you know someone who can draw, these can be quite easy to illustrate. They are an excellent preparation for s-m, and in the later books, l as well. Written by a New Zealander - Stuart Manins, I've found that children who have had these books sung to them a few times, even before consciously learning s-m, never sing the interval out of tune!! "So-me goes Missing"; So-me and the Spider; So-me meets the Boss; So-me O and Romeo.
CROCODILE AND THE DENTIST, THE by Taro Gomi is an adorable book with a crocodile that is afraid of the dentist and a dentist who is afraid of the crododile. The crocodile speaks first echoed exactly by the dentist. Simple, simple dialogue like "Shall I go through with it?" I use this book with my Ks. I will read the crocodile in either a high or low voice and they will echo the dentist is the opposite voice. Students love the book. -- Debbie Nearpass
CROCODILE BEAT Lends itself to instrumentation; Gary and I have produced, and perform, a show in Orff style for preschoolers and junior primary students, called "Jungle Beat" inspired by the wonderful book Crocodile Beat, by Gail Jorgenesen, and Patricia Mullins - Australian -Omnibus Books 1988.
Dem Bones by Bob Barner (Scholastic) 01/02 DREAM SNOW by Eric Carle I found a piece of music on
a set of Celtic Christmas CDs The piece was called "Snow and Roses" and the snow just
twinkles down in the recording.
Drummer by Hoff illus. by Ed Emberly
10/04 DREAM MUSIC: 3-5 metallophones improvising on a pentatonic scale I love
07/13 DUCK! RABBIT! I had great fun and success with the lesson I started yesterday. I read the book then I used the words duck and rabbit. I had them clap on duck and pat one knee then the other on rabbit. We made 4 beat rhythms and had each student take a turn. Then I showed them a quarter note and eighth notes and had them tell me which one was duck and which one was rabbit. I had 3 graders make up their own rhythms and added a rest. Even my special needs class was able to read and clap/pat the rhythms and no mix ups like there are sometimes with ta and ti ti ---- Robin in VA
EIGHT HANDS ROUND, a PATCHWORK ALPHABET, by Ann Whitford Paul, illus. by Jeanette Winter, Harper/Trophy, 1991. (paperback, $4.95) "Old patchwork patterns with their beautiful designs and interesting names can tell us how people lived when our country was still young and growing." Each letter represents a different pattern and includes an illustration of the pattern, a paragraph about the pattern's inspiration, and another historical illustration to go with the paragraph.
THE ELEPHANTS WRESTLING MATCH by Judy Sierra practice reading rhythms on drums following the repeated phrases (say line, play drums, next line, play drums, etc.)-Martha Stanley
The Erie Canal, illus. by Peter Spier (Zephyr Books);
FIVE LITTLE PENGUINS SLIPPING ON THE ICE by Steve Metzger, illustrated by Laura Bryant. It's similar to the "Five Little Monkies" chant, but each penguin has a different mishap. Could be teamed with "Penguin Polka" or "Rockhopper." (both MK8 songs)
Five Little Pumpkins by Iris Van Rynbach
FOLLOW THE DRINKING GOURD by Jeanette Winter I bought it this year and it came with a CD in the back of the book.I got it through Music in Motion catalog. It is so great! I will use it this year during Black History month. the stars of The Big Dipper/Small Dipper already laid out in proper relationship with that 5:1 ratio for finding Polaris. Just e-mail me directly ([email protected]) and I'll enclose the Clarisworks file in a mass-mailing to whom-ever's interested in a day or two. Just be sure to let me know which version of Clarisworks (Appleworks) you're running. I even made little palm-sized Underground Railroad "tickets," - the same document duplicated four-to-a-page and sliced up w/paper cutter using your page set-up in the print menu or PrintChef if you've got that (a great little program). Saves lots of paper if the text is large enough and then the children have their own copy of the song to take with. Kindergarteners especially love this sort of thing - I think it helps them feel literate, a quick and cheap way to give them something to take home besides the mere musical memories. Reading Rainbow has a wonderful video out on "Follow the Drinking Gourd" They use the song (a slightly different melody, same words) throughout the video. It is WONDERFUL! I checked it out from our public library. The Foolish Frog. III. M. Jagr. New York: Macmillan.Seeger, P. & Seeger, C. (1973)
12/09 FREDDY THE FROG I like to use Frog went a Courting after I read the book Freddy the Frog and the Thump in the Night. It's a nice story for children who aren't reading yet but can recognize letters. It helps students to identify the spaces F A C E, and the lines low E and High F. I don't use it for the older children because it's so much faster and easier to explain that the spaces spell FACE. I know this is slightly off topic but it's really helpful, all of my K's know their spaces for notes and two lines. After we read the story each child made their own map of treble clef island and labeled where each character lived with the correct letter. There were some really nice interpretations. --- Allissa Asjr
The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, illustrated by Peter Spier (Dell)
FREIGHT TRAIN Donald Crew's story is a wonderful book to use with or without instruments. (My objective with this book has been simply starting and stopping together.) I read it once, in a rhythmic pace, beginning with the picture of the empty track saying, "is there a train yet?" When the train moves (the picture is marvelous showing movement) I bounce lightly. I invite the children to say with me "ch ch ch ch" or to make the sound of the train whistle; we increase the tempo a little. The second time I read it, I pass out egg shakers (you could make your own with the children) saying "no sound until the train comes." Even very young under 2's understand and marvel at the ending when all the shakers stop together.
FROGGIE PLAYS IN THE BAND Materials: *Book- Froggy Plays in the Band Procedure:>br? 1) Assign instruments (whatever you have) to each character's noises: Froggy's saxophone/horn [Honk! Bleep! Screeeech!]: Max's drums [Ka-BOOM!]: Leah's triangle [Ting-a-ling!]: Emma's recorder [Tweedle-dee!]: Hannah's cymbals [CLASH!]: the parade mishap [Oof! Clang! Crash!]: (everyone!) 2) After the opening class activity (movement, singing, etc), the teacher and the kindergarteners sit in a circle on the floor. Hand out the instruments, explaining how to respect and properly play each instrument. Explain that improper treatment of an instrument will result in the loss of the instrument for the class time. (What worked best for me was placing the instruments in front of them while reminding the Ks to keep their hands in their lap until they were given permission to play!) 3) Depending on class size, students may have to share an instrument (in small groups) which they pass off after they have a turn to use it, or students may each have their own. Students should be instructed not to play until permission is given. (When explaining proper playing, demonstrate and let the students play too- on an individual basis.) 4) Explain that we are going to read a story and each of them has a special part! Then, by groups of instruments, assign them the phrase at which they are to play. Do a practice round. Explain that you will also look/point to them when it is their turn. (Changing the names of the instrument in the story may be helpful for the children to remember when they play ... i.e. Froggy's saxophone becomes Froggy's cowbell) 5) Read the story with expression and vitality, pausing at each special phrase to indicate to the students when it is their turn. Show the pictures! Monitor the playing of the instruments (a gentle but firm reminder may be necessary) -- Briana Bailey
FREDDIE THE FROG and THE THUMP IN THE NIGHT 06/05
I just bought this book about a month ago, and I absolutely love it! (Third grade) I drew a large staff on the board and drew a picture of each thing from the book (Freddie, the elephant, the crocodiles and the azaleas) and we reviewed notes that way. I have found that they relate the story very well to the staff! All I have to do is say "Remember where the azaleas grow" and they remember where A is on the staff! I don't have the puppet, but I'd love to get it! Eventually we will be adding on to the story in order to get to know the rest of the staff that is not included in the story. I'd love to see more of these types of stories be published, they are wonderful! -Sabrina LaPointe I just bought Freddie the Frog and the flashcards. I will begin using it in my 3rd grades next week and hope to work it down the line. The story is great and I'll be looking for more stories. The Cd is fun. I'll purchase the puppet with next year's budget but will use a frog animal I have now interim. thank you for writing such as great story. I may even challenge myself and start with my K's! --- Linda McVety Naples, Me. K-3 Cards for “Freddie the Frog” are available at Plank Road Publishing http://www.musick8.com/
The Friendly Beasts, illustrated by Tomie dePaola (Scholastic)
Frog Went A-Courting. New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard.Watson, W. (1990) 01/03 Froggie Went A-Courtin' illus. by Wendy Watson. by John LangstaffF FROGGIE WENT A-COURTIN' We're singing MK8's version of "Frog Went A-Courtin" and as usual the kids love the great arrangement. I was trying to explain to the kids about how folk songs evlove and change and how there are many different versions of a folk song. I found this great book called "Froggie Went A-Courtin-An Old Tale wit a New Twist" by Marjorie Priceman. In this book Froggie lives in New York City and they get married on top of the Statue of Liberty. The illustrations are delightful.
FROGGIE GETS DRESSED by Jonathan London 06/05 add a song sound effects for the different articles of clothing repetition -- Martha Stanley
Snow, Snow! Is in 6/8 (I = quarter, z = quarter, / = eighth)
G (I. ) z. E (I.) z C (/) E (I) E (/) D C D (///) E (I.) z.
snow snow I love to play in the snow
Repeat above but end on C in last measure -- Ardith Roddy
Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonahan Logan
FROGGIE GOES TO SCHOOL It is a book about this frog's first day at school and how he felt. Then I had a huge stuffed frog in my lap with long arms. I taught the K's the song, Galump Went the Little Green Frog. I then let the frog clap some rhythms for them to clap back. I laminated green lily pads for us all to sit on. One side was a ta/ti-ti/rest pattern to be used later in the year. The other side was just solid green.The next week (I just see them once a week) I introduced them to Menlo the Frog software program. We clapped when the frog jumped through the hoop. The stuffed frog was a favorite all year. We would take turns holding the frog and always used it for echoing rhythms.
FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA--A Treasury of American Folklore and Folksongs
The Frog who Wanted to Be Singer..Linda Goss Great one for older elementary - it ends up being the reason boogie woogie music was created - and gives you more springboards into curriculum!
GIRAFFES CAN'T DANCE by Giles Andreae and illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees today. It is a wonderful story about how Gerald the Giraffe goes to the annual Jungle Dance and is met with some rude animals that poke fun at him and make him freeze in fear on the dance floor because he is so clumsy. He finds his way out of the dance and is looking at the moon when a cricket advises him that the only reason he couldn't dance is because he didn't have the right kind of music and encourages him to hear the music that the trees and the rest of the jungle makes. - Alison Rohrbach
GOD BLESS AMERICA, including the lyrics and score at the back. Words and music by Irving Berlin, illustrated by Lynn Munsinger. The illustrations are very child-friendly, bears dressed like people. Scholastic Copyright 2002, $3.99 in U.S.
GOODNIGHT MOON has been on my shelf for several years.
It fit in perfectly this year when new K lang.arts curric. came to
the unit Off We Go/Let's Go: Animal travels and People travels.
The K's loved the language in the book and discussing what the
traveling animal could/couldn't be. This tied in with singing solos
to different stuffed animals/puppets in the room and songs of travel
like "A Long Way Home," a favorite call/response type song from
the Tom Chapin album: "Family Tree."
GOODNIGHT MOON (video): I was happy to find a Good Night Moon video at the library. It is excellent! Susan Sarandon reads the story (beautifully), and there are special songs about sleeping/dreaming by Tony Bennett, The Beatles, etc. Also, they have a lot of little kids talking about dreaming and sleeping - the stuff they come up with is amazing! I purchased the video from ERC catalog (after renewing it 3 times from the library), and I have also wondered how to tie this in to my teaching - the video is so great, and the book seems like it would lend itself naturally to a music class with little ones. -- Contributed by Leah McDonald
Garage Song. III. B. Karlin. New York: Simon & Schuster.Wilson, S. (1991).
The Giving Tree Shel Silverstein
GUSTAV MOLE'S WAR on Noise by Kathryn Meyrick
GUNNE WOLF
http://www.piercecountylibrary.org/files/library/gunniwolf-activity_001.pdf
Since this may be the first time that the kids have ever had to do
intentional ensemble work of any quality, I make it a teaching moment to
talk about how in music we have to learn to match. What is match? So I use
this book to:
First - I have two outrageous voices that I use for the girl and for the
mom. The girl is from the DDDDDEEEEEPPPP South; the mom is just kinda whiney
southern inner city. That makes it fun for me which spills over to the
kids.
HAILSTONES & HALIBUT BONES makes a perfect movement piece. In small groups, the children get a poem (select some) and enough scarves for each person in the group. Their assignment is to use the scarves to dramatize the words in their poem. They do not need to be too detailed (set a time limit.) Another springboard into listening lessons would be to find classical pieces that might show the different moods the colors evoke. Sue Snyder has a nice collection on a CD that goes with Dr. Suess' Many Colored Days. I've seen it in the West catalog. The Suess activity is more appropriate for younger kids, while "Halibut Bones" works well with upper el. - Becky
HALLOWEEN CATS by Jean Marzollo, Hans Wilhelm, ill., Scholastic; Good for creative movement
The Happy Hedgehog Band by Martin Waddell
HANDS, HANDS, FINGERS, THUMBS by Al Perkins is fun to use with drums. - Barbara Lee
THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN RIDES TONIGHT More poems to trouble your sleep" By Jack Prelutsky, Illustrated by Arnold Lobel. I read the poem to the class, first warning them that I was only going to read it this once (I wanted them in their best listening mode). I asked them to pick out words that created sounds in their minds. After I had read the poem, I asked for their suggestions, we added their sound effects then read the poem again, pausing after their word for the sounds to have their effect. A simple lesson plan really, but very effective. The kids wanted to do it over and over again. Words that created sounds in their minds)
The Heart of the Wood by Marguerite W. Davol
Hokey Pokey: Another Prickly Love Story by Lisa Wheeler and Janie Bynum? It is so much fun! I read it to my little ones after we danced the Hokey Pokey the other day. It is full of puns and humor and encouragement. It's a winner! -- Contributed by Kristin Lukow
HOW THE SKY'S HOUSEKEEPER WORE HER SCARVES, a yearly favorite with 2nds is . This book has nothing to do with music,
but with assorted sound sources, barred instruments, movement,
and songs inserted at appropriate points, it makes a charming class
project. We invite one 1st in to a performance of the finished
product from each 2nd class. Several Music Standards are
addressed by the time we have finished the project.
How Music Came to the World by Hal Ober; good for improvisation of instruments, act out
HOW THE WIND PLAYS by Michael Lipson, Daniel Kirk, ill., Good for creative movement
06/10 HOW TO SPEAK MOO! by Deborah Fajerman
It's PERFECT for use before singing Moo Tube MK8 18/1.
It's so creative and perfect for vocal experimentation! --- Contributed by Kristin Lukow
Oh, A-Hunting We Will Go John Longstaff/Nancy Parker NY:Atheneum.Langstaff, J. (1977)It starts with the fox and then has 10 other rhymes.It is good for the ESL classes I teach.
Hush by Mingfong Ho a Thai story, great pictures, easy to add instruments for animals, and use with a lullabye; A lullaby in the form of verse/chorus easily adapted to a pentatonic melody:
HUSH LITTLE BABY Stuart Manins, A Folk Lullaby. New York: Little Simon.Aliki. (1968)
I KNOW AN OLD LADY First I used flannel board pieces that I made years ago. I can't remember the book where I got the pieces but there is a woman's face which I glued to half a file folder, cut a slit under her mouth & attached a clear baggie. I talked to the students about all the things she swallowed & attached those pieces to the flannel board, then sang the song & let the woman "swallow" each object. The next time I saw the students I had them remind me of the order of the critters & displayed the pieces on the flannel board. Then I used a doll that I got several years ago - you can see one at
12/13 I KNOW AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED A FLY: For a program to picture ‘being swallowed’: Use a big hula hoop with for mouth (Obviously separate from Old Lady). Maybe you could get a refrigerator box or something large to build an "old lady face" around the hula hoop. You could hang scarves or fabric strips from top of hoop to hide interior. The animals could then step through the hoop out of sight to be swallowed. ---- Carol in Iowa
I’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER Robert Munsch - You can actually go to Robert Munsch's website and listen to him sing the melody to this book. He reads the book for you...I used this in a program this year with Orff instruments. The parents loved it! ---- Julie Ely I've used the melody to "The Ash Grove" - works well. ----- PattyO in AR I actually found him singing it at this link: http://robertmunsch.com/love-you-forever/ It's a very sweet little melody ----Stephanie Menefee
I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE by Bill Martin One of my favorite books to use during February is Jr. and Michael Sampson, Illustrated by Chris Raschka. (Candlewick Press ~ ISBN 0-7636-1648-6) If you are not familiar with the book, it is the Pledge of Allegiance with commentary by the authors. Very child like...very cool! If you share this book with children, consider adding a recording of Midway March (John Williams) playing in the background while you read. The music fits perfectly with the text and supports the whole book beautifully. Contributed by Leslie Bakkum
IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT! 06/05 by Jan Ormerod and Lindsey Gardiner, Star Bright Books This cutie starts out with a little girl doing the traditional "If you're happy.....clap your hands." but then various animals present their ideas of what they can do to show they are happy. -- Connie Herbon
IS YOUR MAMA A LAMA? Here is what I do with the book "Is Your Mama a Llama?". Our library has a big book with little figurines of all of the animals. The kids enjoy the story and the illustrations very much.
Patty Oeste http://escribe.com/education/mk8/m70685.html
sent an ostinato idea with the book "Is Your Mama A Llama" but I did something more with it this week! I had the kids listen to the book and predict the animal by the clues given in the story. Then, we played a game using the zoopals! Pick one student to go and secretly pick a zoopal and do not show the class. Sit in front of the class as they sing: "Is your mama a llama?" (s-s m m-l s m) The person who chose a zoo plate answers "no, she's not" (s-s m) The class then asks: "What does she do, can you give us a clue?" (s s-s m m-m s s-s m) Then the kid can give clues to the animal they picked and the person who guesses correctly gets to go next.I did it with 1st grade today for the first time and they had a great time! -- Contributed by Rae Anna Goss
01/07 I’M A LITTLE TEAPOT Iza Trapani. AWESOME! THE kids are simply mezmerized when I sing each page to them! The illustrations are super good too. They come with cd's too, but I find I like singing them myself so I can control the speed of the book. -- Ms. Paula Scott
01/02 IN TIME OF THE DRUMS by Kim Siegelson, illustrated by Brian Pinkney
Hyperion Books for Children, NY 1999.
I would pair this book with songs & games of Bessie Jones from the Georgia
Sea Islands. You can find these in the book "Step It Down" by Bessie Smith.
You can also find one of these games in MK8 Vol. 10 #3 by Judith Cook
Tucker. Its called "Uncle Jessie" and is a game song from the islands. There
is a lot of good history in the article Judith wrote and an interesting
explanation for the lyrics and actions of the game. Other good games include
"Draw Me A Bucket of Water" (gr 3 STM & Step It Down, Jump Jim Joe) and
"Little Johnny Brown" (Step It Down and Jump Jim Joe) The Bessie Jones
versions of the songs get the orignal credits.
It Could Always Be Worse Margot Zemach
01/07 ITSY BITSY SPIDER Iza Trapani. AWESOME! THE kids are simply mezmerized when I sing each page to them! The illustrations are super good too. They come with cd's too, but I find I like singing them myself so I can control the speed of the book. -- Ms. Paula Scottv
In a Cabin, In a Wood by Darcie McNally
JAMBERRY by Bruce Degen, Scholastic Good for singing, echoes, etc.,
Jeremy's Decision by Ardyth Brott
01/07 JUMP FROG, JUMP by Byron Barton is good to use with barred instruments -- Barbara Lee
JUPITER COVE This is a story that has the timing written on the pages so that you read certain part of the story at certain times while the music is playing. Jupiter Cove goes along with Jupiter from The Planets by Holst. There is even a short info page at the beginning of the book about The Planets and a little blurb about Holst. The kids REALLY respond well to it. --- Marti Rankin
Kids Pick The Funniest Poems collected by Bruce Lansky
LAST HOLIDAY CONCERT 06/05 - by Andrew Clements Last night I went to Barnes & Noble and bought the absolute BEST book. I read it in one night (sure, it was a kids book, but still, I couldn't put it down!)!!! It's abut how an intermediate grade school teacher is about to lose his job, and frustrated with the whole thing, hand over the Christmas program for the 6th Grade choir to do ON THEIR OWN! It's funny heartwarming, insightful, and has a great idea for a program at the end (don't skip to the end, whatever you do!). - Betty Petersen
LAUGHING RIVER which is the story of Che Che Kule and Funga Alfia. The way I use this is to tell the kids that we are going on a trip. They must use their imaginations as the principal said that there was not enough money to fund this project. Anyway... when we get to Africa I leave and come back into the room as their African guide. Some kids think that the uide looks suspiciosly like me, but I tell them that they are not using their imaginations enough. Anyway... as their guide I tell them stories...one of which is the Laughing River story. We often go back to our African trip and learn more stories. Ise Oluwa is a great song I found in Silver Burdett but a lot of my stuff comes from Sweet Honey in the rock CD's They have a great story about the Mbube...
LENTIL by Robert McCloskey....That book has been
a favorite of mine since I was a little girl. It
made me want to either whistle or play the
harmonica. I read it to my students EVERY year.
Classroom teachers love the social studies
it includes...patriotism, down the street, past
the store, through the alley, dedication of the
memorial, the town's team spirit....despite Sneep.
It should be in everyone's library.
THE LION It then goes into the their version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight. I tend to do these 'trips a lot. The kids love them and it really holds their attention and gives a nice reference to cultural music.
Sing the song then recite the following poem in between repititions:
WITH my THOUGHTS I WELcome YOU (palms up, hands touching head, arms outstetched, then point; WITH my WORDS I WELcome YOU (palms up, hands touching corners of mouth, arms outstetched, then point); WITH my HEART I WELcome YOU (palms up, hands touching chest, arms outstetched, then point)SEE, I have NOTHing up my SLEEVES (point to eyes, arms outstetched, wrists running up one anothers sleeves); This last item I usually accompany with a crudely staged disappearance trick, although I have to remember to wear long sleeves on those days since I'm a short-sleeve-kinda-guy. Since I'm also a terrible magician the students usually figure out pretty quickly that whatever object I happen to have chosen is merely "disappearing" into my sleeve. I then jump off into quick discourse on dangerous objects that could be hidden inside a pair of sleeves and the idea of trusting people that are friendly enough to welcome you with a song like the current example.
Let's Give Kitty a Bath Stephen Lindblom; Only words in book are: (sol-mi) Here, kitty, kitty, kitty
LISTEN TO THE RAIN by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archambault; published by Henry Holt (ISBN#0805006826)-----wonderful language to encourage improvisation of rain sounds. Try it with a sheet of newspaper open on each child's lap for them to make rain sounds with fingers and hands. Then move to instruments set up on C pentatonic to create rain music to go with the story. This one never fails to elicit good improvisation!
THE LISTENING WALK by Paul Showers. Illustated by Aliki. It is a story about a girl and her father who go on a walk around the city, and then the park. They call it a "listening walk" because of all the sounds they hear on their walk. I mix instrumental sound effects with vocal sounds to represent such sounds as..... dog's toenails- scratching on the sidewalk; father's shoes- slowly; lawn mower; lawn sprinklers; cars- shiny, new, quiet/and old noisy broken down cars; tires screeching; bicycle bells ringing; baby crying; jet flying overhead; basketball; high heels- a lady is running to catch a bus; bus stopping "pfssss"; jackhammer; pigeons; ducks; woodpecker; crickets; wind; bees
There is an adorable book for "Little Cabin in the Woods". It has all kinds of
animals that come to visit the little man. The "hunter" is a guy with a camera
who wants to "shoot" their picture!
LITTLE BEAVER AND THE ECHO I am going to bring a back-pac of stuff that shows them who I am!..... I will also bring my beaver puppet named Nibbles out of the pac to talk to them. He is a French beaver from Canada who doesn't think he can sing........
06/07 LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE LAURA ENGALL’S WILDER The Laura Ingalls Wilder Songbook (Favorite Songs form the "Little House" Books)
THE LITTLE OLD LADY WHO WASN’T AFRAID OF ANYTHING I use this in K and 1st. I put out 6 hula hoops on the floor with different instruments for each article of the scarecrow. Divide the children into groups to sit around the hoops. In each hoop is a picture card with the item (shoes) and what they say when they play (clomp, clomp!).We perform the book with the children playing each time their part occurs. At the end we finish with a big group roll, because all of the items joined together to make the scarecrow. So, we scare the crows away! They really like it and hang in there throughout. -- The instruments I use are: Shoes-woodblocks -- pants-jingle bells -- shirt-maracas -- gloves-tambourines - hat-guiros -- pumpkin head-drums - Contributed by Artie Almeida
Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Michael Rosen
01/02 THE LOST MUSIC (Gustav Mole's war on noise), is by far
my favorite. Gustav and his family are driven from their home because of
the city noise, and travel the world searching for the lost music. It is
SO well thought out - each country they visit has animals indigenous to
the country playing authentic instruments (i.e. Pandas playing the chin,
tiger on the sitar, orang-outangs playing in the gamelan, etc. . . ) Gustav's children fight it much of the time, preferring to listen to their Walkman, but in the end they realize they can't stand to not make
music. There is a wonderful proclamation at the end of the book decreeing
among other things that "Dance, Singing and Music Shall Be Taught In Every
School"
LOVE CAN BUILD A BRIDGE....based on a song by the Judds and beautifully illustrated with pictures of children being kind to one another, forming a bridge, as the recipient of kindness on one page becomes the giver on the next. It comes with a tape of the song, which is lovely, but easy enough for kids to learn quickly. I've been using it my classes at the end of the period. I call the kids together on the rug, and tell them that, since we've seen alot of pain and cruelty around us in the last couple of weeks, I wanted to show them something about being good to one another, taking care of one another, and showing kindness and love.First I read them the book and point out the sequence of the pictures, then I play the tape and turn the pages.....they are so attentive it's astounding! One of my second graders said, "Hey! This is a REAL song!" Great.
Love Flute. New York: Bradbury.Goble, P. (1002)
LOVE YOU FOREVER: I do this book/song each year and always sing the song to "The Ash Grove." I just know it works and I've been doing it since my kids were little. --- Kristin Lukow I always sing it to "May There Always Be Sunshine" by Gemini. (And you're all right --- it's almost impossible to read without getting teary. --- Judy Schneider
THE MAESTRO PLAYS by Bill Martin Jr. Published by Henry Holt and Company, NY. The artwork is done by Vladimir Radunsky and is very bold and catchy. The language is very expressive. For example; The Maestro plays. He plays proudly. He plays loudly...He plays reachingly. He plays beseechingly." Just an example of some of the textures in the literature. Fascinating - creative.
Mama Buy me a China Doll Stuart Manins
01/02 MICE SQUEAK, WE SPEAKby Tomie de Paola. I use this with primary children 2-4 but it
would be alright with Kindergarten I believe.
Ming-Lo Moves The Mountain 02/02 The Mitten by Jan Brett (the one with animals all trying to climb inside the mitten) with beautiful illustrations and side bar pictures.
04/03 MR EVERBODY'S APARTMENT by Miles Feltenberger -- It's a book that helps children learn to read music. It's tells a story of a man named "Mr. E" who lives and manages a five story apartment building (the building looks like a staff with a roof on it). Mr. E lives on the first floor. Ghosts with funny faces live in the spaces between the floors. A crazy cat and a dumb dog live in the basement. The crazy cat walks on the clothes line where the boys dry their clothes. The dog chased it one day and bounced up and hit the ceiling, where he's stuck forever. Once the kids learn a few characters, the characters try to "fool" the children by hiding their faces and making them black and white and giving them stems. The kids feel really great about guessing them correctly when the characters try to fool them. I just started teaching my kids book 1 today. I taught a 2nd grade and kindergarten class. They both enjoyed it. -- Contributed by Kristi Keast
MOLE MUSIC by David McPhail.ISBN 0-8050-6766-3. The pictures are beautiful and it kind of tells a story within a story. It's about a mole who sees a violinist on TV and orders a violin for himself and teaches himself how to play, all the while providing music for the animals and people who live above his tunnels (without him knowing). As a violinist and as a music teacher I love the book because it teaches determination for something that you love and it also tells about the effects of music on all people.
Mommy Buy Me a China Doll- Zemach
MOSES GOES TO A CONCERT by Isaac Millman (Frances Foster Books). Moses is a hearing-impaired little boy who goes to a concert with his deaf class from school. The percussionist is barefoot on the stage, and they find out it's because she's also deaf, and needs to feel the vibration through the floor to know when to play. In the end, Moses tells his parents about the concert and says he wants to be a percussionist when he grows up.---
12/13 MORTIMER Mortimer Concepts: Beat, Rhythm, Singing/Speaking voices, classify non-pitched percussion, fast/slow, loud/quiet,
music may express feelings, accompany simple melody, high/low, melodic contour Skills: singing, playing, moving
Read the story to the children, or listen to Robert Munsch read the story. You can download free MP3s at www.robertmunsch.com
When you come to the song, sing along. Pat or clap the beat as you sing. When someone climbs the stairs,
start with a low voice and show the melodic direction getting higher as you climb. Add a stomp with your feet as you
climb the stairs.
MORTIMER by Robert Munsch. 10/04 - on the "thump" parts, I've increased the # of thumps to 8 ascending and 8 descending, and sing them as a major scale. For the repeating "refrain," I use the following melody: s m ff m r dddd m s r s m ff m r ssssf r d ta ta tiri ti ta tiritiri ti ti ta-a ta ta tiri ti ta tiritiri ti ti ta - a The kids love this...will open the door for the body scale and xylophones...rhythm instruments...this will be fun! -- Becky Luce
06/06 MORTIMER: I read the story, but don't show the pictures. I much prefer imagination. I provide the sound effects with my voice. I read it again using a xylophone for the steps, tambourine for "BE QUIET", rhythm sticks for "cling clang rattle bing bang" and nesting drums for the slammed door and the fights. We vote which was more fun to listen to. No contest! We make a circle. One fourth get sticks, on fourth get tambos, one fourth get nesting drums and one fourth get xylos. I used xylopipes for this. The colored bars made it easy to climb the stairs on a one octave C scale. Mom walks up at normal speed. Dad runs. THe policemen climb very slowly. I let them gliss for the 17 brothers and sisters, once up and once down. After each telling, they stand. I tell the person to my right (sticks) to stay STOP when they get to a tambo. At that point every one should be standing in front of their next instrument. This took some classes MUCH practice. On the last telling, I improvise all kinds of new adventures for Mortimer and company, to the great, and loud, delight of all. -- Andrea Cope MORTIMER http://robertmunsch.com/books and download (or just play from there) him reading the stories! Kids have instruments of choice on the floor. When it gets to the part that says and he said, Clang, Clang, Rattle Bing Bang, they pick up their instruments and "bang," Then they put them down. On the up, up, up, up I play the step bells up and they sing it. They kids LOVE this. Wynne Alexander
06/06 MORTIMER We play Orff Instruments only on the song: g g c c d d e c g a a a g g g c c d d c Gonna make my noise all day. We read the book using voice exploration by going up and down. I use Robert Munsch's "Up, Up, Down" to play up and down or pitched instruments. -- Pat Bellar
It is about a child named Mortimer who won't go to bed. Each member of his family has to walk up and down the stairs (high/low) to try to get him to be quiet. When they go up and down we did thumps getting higher and lower. There is also a song that he sings every time they leave, although I'm not sure that the tune is notated anywhere in the book. I might be able to notate it for you if you are interested. I used this book with third grade class and we turned it into a musical play. The kids made up a song for Mortimer and a song for the others when they tell Mortimer to be quiet. I had them use instruments set up in pentatonic so it was easy for them to figure out an accompaniment. We discussed timbre when we decided which instruments would be appropriate for the mother's thumps, dad's thumps, etc. They acted it out- lots of parts when there are 17 brothers and sisters. The smallest girl in class played the mother and the largest kid in class played Mortimer. He wonderfully acted out the whole thing. We used a narrator reading the actual book. The audience loved it!!
01/07 A MOUSE CALLED WOLF (1st Grade) about a mouse family who lives in a mouse hole underneath a grand piano. The baby mouse's name is Wolfgang Amadeus Mouse. Very cute. The kids have been absolutely enchanted with it. -- Marcia Rothra Raleigh, North Carolina
Music in the Family by Donna Renee Carter
01/02 MUSICAL LIFE OF GUSTAV MOLE by Kathryn Meyrick starts with Gustav as a
baby, growing up in a musical family (all the characters are animals, of
course). It shows many different instruments (orchestral, folk, toys,
homemade), instrument groups and styles of music, and highlights the
importance of music and the many moods it can stir. I love using both
books with the Microsoft Musical Instruments CD ROM.
Musical Max. III. J. Arrugo & A. Dewey. New York: Simon & Schuster.Kraus, R. (1990)
02/02 The Mystery of the Lost Mitten by Steven Kellog the ending is neat - the red mitten is in the chest of the snowman as his heart.
The Napping House
NINE DUCKS NINE by Sarah Hayes, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books; Good for Speech or Rhythmic Echoes
NO, DAVID by David Shannon *1.* Read the book to the class, engaging children with questions like,
"What is David doing wrong?" or "What is going on in this picture?"
Noah's Square Dance by Rick Walton
NOTEWORTHY TALE,A I read it in little chapters each week for about a month as i do up and down ,high ,low and finally the scale with the kids. they love it. I will be asked about it now for another month. I always sing the scale when it reads do,re, mi. then when mi is stolen I leave him out. I have used it for 2yrs now and all the kids loved it. from 2yrs. up to 3rd grade I guess. I love all the musical refrences like city of rhapsody and piccolo pines,waltzing woods etc.
Number Nine Bus
06/10 NOW NOW MARKUS....... Martin Auer and Simone Klager
a great and wacky book. Unusual.
Authors:
Originally published in Germany in 1988 as Bimbo Und Sein Vogel.
There are a few places where the kids can get involved:
Oh my goodness, the mother said.
Now now now, the father said
over and over........
It's a good way to get the kids to use their voices expressively. Depending
on the feeling of the words, the meaning changes.
The animals in the park hoot, hiss, growl and wail -also great for student
voice work.
And when Markus gets thwarted (doesn't get his way) his reponse: Fine.
Then I'll drop dead.
And he does.
But when he can't have supper cuz he's dead, he changes his mind. Amazing.
And there's a giant and a protective swan.
In New York (or some other large city).
More fun word play in the LOOOOOONG string of words showing what the giant
ate (and threw up).
Death, parents, running away, giants, urping --- what more could a kid want
in a book?
Inventive and uproarious book that deserves to be read again and again.---- Martha Stanley, NBCT
"SING, PIERROT SING" by Tomie dePaola. The book has no text....it is strictly a picture
book telling the story of Pierrot's sadness at the loss of his beloved to
another man. All she did was show the pictures with no narration. I'm not
sure how many pics are in the book, but just divide the time equally between
the pics. --- Cynthia Sibitzky - North Pole
The Nutcracker Retold. J. Richardson. III. F. Crespi. New York: Arcade.Hoffman, E.T.A. (1990)
OFF TO THE SWEET SHORE OF AFRICA by a Nigerian woman;
It's nursery rhymes retold with African themes and
beautiful illustrations. There's so much you can do with these rhymes...add
instruments, body percussion, accompaniments, chant, etc.
10/01 OH, A-HUNTING WE WILL GO by John Langstaff and pictures by Nancy Winslow Parker, Atheneum Macmillan Publishing. It starts with the fox and then has 10 other rhymes.It is good for the ESL classes I teach.
Oh My a Fly! Los Angeles: Price Stern Sloan.Pienkowski, J. (1989)
OH WHERE HAS MY LITTLE DOG GONE by Iza Trapani (W.C. Press)We play the hot and cold game with a small stuffed dog, named Piano. When the seeker is close to the hidden dog they sing the "Where oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone" song forte. When the seeker is far away from the hidden dog, the class sings the song piano. It's great to see the students crescendo and decrescendo! Also we sing the "Bingo" song using the small dog and spelling out P-I-A-N-O and a larger stuffed dog, spelling out F-O-R-T-E. //
ONE SUN & PLAY DAY by Bruce McMillan. My students never tire of it. On each page are two one-syllable rhyming words. I would set each page to music using so and mi (so so, so mi, mi mi, or mi so) and direct my students accordingly, using Curwen hand signals. I might have one student close the eyes and guess which of the four possible settings we had just played.
The Old Banjo. III. S. Gammell. New York: Macmillan.Haseley, D. (1983)
OLD BLACK FLY by Jim Aylesworth, Stephen Gammell, ill., Scholastic; Good for singing, echoes, etc.,
06/06 OLD DEVIL WIND by Bill Martin, Jr. (illustrated Barry Root) is a wonderful cumulative book to add a sound carpet to for Halloween. I was using it today with first graders, and thought about all of you:) I know this is short notice for this year if you don't already have this book, but it is available on amazon if you are interested for next year. (I believe it is out of print, as it was published in 1993. However, you can buy it reasonably on Amazon.) -- Linda Roberts
03/03 THE OLD LADY WHO WASN'T AFRAID OF ANYTHING
This book is great as a sound story. Here's what I do:
Shoes: play the "clomp, clomp" on small hand drums
OLD MACDONALD HAD A CART by Children's author Suzanne Williams It's the Old
MacDonald song we all know and love, but it's set in a city, with Old
MacDonald being a street vendor. The animals are ones you would find in a
city, and it was a lot of fun singing it with K-1st grade today.
ONE LIGHT, ONE SUN Raffi, illus. by Eugenie Fernandes (Crown Pub.)
One, Two Three, Echo Me me sometimes. One activity that is good to get the kids singing on their own is to have items like a penny, pencil, crayon and such. Sing "Who has the penny?"-so-mimi-so-mi and the child who has the object sings "I have the penny" and such (same pitches). This is also in the Share the music text. The kids love this game. I let them pass out the objects, and I've even extended it to where
the children that passed out the object sing the question.
12/07 ONE LITTLE, TWO LITTLE, THREE LITTLE PILGRIMS, [my favorite Thanksgiving book for K's] is by B.G. Hennessy. If you don't have access to the book, it pops up on Google if you just enter the title in quotes. The whole thing is set to the tune of "Ten Little Indians," although I don't think the word Indian is used in the text - it's Wampanoag. That seems like quite a mouthful for K's, but mine were usually quite proud of themselves for knowing and using the name. The text could be divided up and treated as a choral reading. My book is buried in the basement, and we never had to add songs and make a "program", but "Hohowatanay" is one song I'd work in. My K's also loved "Fastest Turkey". (I just did an Archive search & found it posted in a 2002 message from Denise Gagne. ) We did not do it as a chase game, just added simple actions. Instead of "in the barnyard", I'd use "in the forest" if referring to wild turkeys. -- Connie Herbon
01/03 ONE TWO THREE ECHO ME Just received 1,2,3, Echo Me by Loretta Mitchel from Silver Lake College, 2406 S. Alverno Road, Manitowoc, WE 54220 It is on page 9 of the cataloge, cost $26.95. The catalogue is called Kodaly related publications. I kept reading that this book was out of print but there was no problems with ordering it from this source. Their email is [email protected]
OUTSIDE, INSIDE by Carolyn Crimi, Linnea Asplind Riley, ill., Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1995 (POP) Good for creative movement
Over in the Meadow by John Langstaff
THE PATCHWORK QUILT, by Valerie Flournoy, illus. Jerry Pinkney, Dial Books. (a Reading Rainbow book) The story and illustrations and focus on the African American family are great for my classes, however, it is quite long, as picture books go.
Parade by Donald Crews
PETE THE CAT & HIS BUTTONS - I have them make rhythmic sentences after reading & singing the colored
buttons book with buttons and coffee plastic stirring sticks then half the
room finds a friend to exchange clapping & counting their sentence. They
try the new sentence on their own as the creator watches. Then they count
and clap it together. Switch to their friends sentence on the other side of
the room. I ask for 1 or two groups to volunteers to draw their idea on
the board and we try it as partners and as a class. A good reinforcement of
whole and quarter notes & bar lines/ double bar lines. Buttons are found
cheaply at the thrift store or craft store! -- Heather Barry, Alberta, Canada
WITH ROCKIN' IN MY SCHOOL SHOES, I've gotten various school supplies & put
in a book bag - things that Pete might have had to take to school the first
day. Students pull out an item. Then I sing something like "Who has the
crayons?" & the student with the crayons answers "I have the crayons" &
returns them to the book bag.
4 GROOVY BUTTONS - I drew a shirt outline with 4 vertical quarter rests as
"button holes", then printed on cardstock. Laminated. Have enough for
each child. Found some foam discs somewhere - maybe Dollar Tree, maybe
Hobby Lobby or Michael's - 4 colors: red, yellow, green, blue. Drew little
button holes on them, but that's optional. ;) Put 4 "buttons" in a small
container (Dollar Tree) - ziplock bags don't last plus little hands
sometimes struggle with zipping. I put tape on the back of my buttons &
stuck them onto the shirt - held up to show students. What color are the
buttons? What shape are the buttons? How many buttons are there? What if
one pops off & rolls away? What if another one pops off? Then every
student gets a shirt & buttons & we practice removing the buttons so that
we have 3, 2, 1, 0. Then we put the buttons back on & listen to the book,
taking off a button each time one of Pete's pops off. And of course we
have to sing the "butt-in" song. Cross-curricular activity - more color,
shape, math than music but the kids love it - plus that sort of thing is
highly encouraged at my school. Also, Tracy King has a strong/weak beat
activity sheet with this book that I've used before.
There's a cute VIDEO OF THE WHEELS ON THE BUS with Pete the Cat - also one
of him dancing. Haven't shown either in awhile but the kids LOVE them.----Tina Morgan
Pinterest is filled with Pete the Cat resources. This page in particular
includes music activities.
https://www.pinterest.com/franciebrown/pete-the-cat-music-activities/
Peter & the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev, illus. by Jorg Muller
PIGS ROCK by Melanie Davis Jones, illustrated by Bob Staake, published by Viking, a Division of Penguin Putnam Books A musical band of pigs plays a variety of styles for their fans and has an adventure as they set out to arrive at a performance. We're in the 4/4 meter section of our Rockin' Rhythm Raps unit, so this one will be great for my 3rd graders. I think I'll teach them a Boomwhacker ostinato to accompany "Heart and Soul," which is mentioned in the book. If time allows we may also add a blues progression for "Blue Suede Shoes," which is also mentioned. -- Connie Herbon
The Pilgrims are Marching by Carol Greene
01/02 POET OF THE PEOPLE by Bonnie Christensen about Woody Guthrie:
(2001, Alfred A. Knopt, New York): beautifully illustrated, thorough tale of the legendary
singer/songwriter's life and his influence on American culture and
music. from his poor Oklahoma roots, to his migrant days, his WWII
Merchant Marine days, to his final struggle with Huntington's.
especially poignant emphasis on his "giving a voice" to the suffering
dust-bowl farm families of the 30's.
POLAR BEAR, POLAR BEAR, WHAT DO YOU HEAR? Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? Some of my favorite "sure-fire" teaching ideas had to do with books and music. Every year I had a lesson with the Kindergarten class that dealt with tone color. I used the book Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle along with classroom instruments (rhythm instruments) and a tape recorder. I would begin the class by naming different animals and asking the students to make the corresponding animal sounds. I would ask them why each animal sounds different, and what would happen if every animal sounds the same? I would then read the book out loud and ask the class to think of animal sounds in their heads, but not to say them out loud the first time through. Then I re-read the book and after each animal the entire class could make whatever animal sound they thought sounded good. The third time I read the book, I would tape record the class making the animal noises and then play it back for them - they loved that! Finally, I would list the animals on the board (more for my own sake than for theirs since some students still couldn't read them) and ask students to pick out rhythm instruments that might sound good in place of each individual animal sound. Everyone would then get an instrument and I would read the book one last time with the students playing the instruments in place of the animal sounds. They really enjoy this lesson and they are quick at identifying differences in tone color. Two activities that I did all year round with them that correspond well are 1) the instrument game: I would show the class certain instruments that I would hide out of sight and then one student would pick a hidden instrument and play it and someone would guess which instrument it is, and 2) the "name" game: Someone would sit in the middle of a circle of students with his or her eyes closed and then I would quietly pick someone to sing the middle person's name on a sol-mi melody. The middle person would have to guess who was singing his or her name and then that person would come to the middle of the circle. I never ceased to be amazed at how easily the students could identify each other's voices! It offered an opportunity for individual singing and ear training.
POSSUM COME-A KNOCKIN’ A good steady beat book by Nancy Van Laan. -- Barbara Lee
Pudding Bag
PUMPKIN EYE (Halloween book) and it's by Denise Fleming who wrote In the Tall, Tall Grass, which is in Artie's Mallet Madness book. The whole book, Pumpkin Eye, has short, very rhythmic, rhyming phrases, like "Piece of pie, Pumpkin eye" and "Trick or Treat, pounding feet, Halloween has found our street." VERY CUTE!! I did it with K and 1 this week with my instruments in Mallet Madness formation using the Mallet Madness rotation. It was a blast!! Very colorful illustrations too, just like In the Tall Tall Grass. --- Meredith Harley Inserra
The Pumpkin Man and the Crafty Creeper. III. H. Craig.New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard.Mahy, M. (1990)
PUFF, THE MAGIC DRAGON - I loved this song as a kid--but really haven't sung it in a long time. I bought the book---It is beautiful and gentle and sweet. It comes with a cd of Peter Yarrow. -- Deanna Peters Puff, the Magic Dragon (Book & CD) by Peter Yarrow, Lenny Lipton, and Eric Puybaret (a sequel)
Quail Song. III. Barnett. New York: Whitebird.Carey, V.S. (1990)
QUILTS: (The following are here as suggestions for enrichment with MK8 song: "My Quilt")
THE QUILTMAKER'S GIFT, by Jeff Brumbeau, ill. by Gail deMarcken, Pfeifer-Hamilton Pub., 2000, (Hardcover, $17.95) "When a generous quiltmaker finally agrees to make a quilt for a greedy king but only under certain conditions, she causes him to undergo a change of heart." For those who fall for a good story and brilliant watercolor illustrations, you'll want to see a copy of this one! As picture books go, I'd find it a bit long for one sitting, but the message would be good for even the older students to hear.
RAP A TAP, TAP - HERE'S BOJANGLES, THINK OF THAT By Leo & Diane Dillon, The Blue Sky Press, an Imprint of Scholastic Inc. Good for Speech or Rhythmic Echoes
I love using "Rap a Tap Tap" with my Pre-K students. They tap sticks on the "Rap a Tap Tap" part and have to return their sticks to "position" (one stick on each leg) as they say "think of that." It is amazing how it helps with them grasping the concept of the group performing together (teamwork) and that they must pay attention in order to start and stop together. It is SO easy, yet so effective. My Pre-K teachers LOVE me for doing this with their classes. -- Beeper Coffman
Roll Over! A Counting Song by Merle Peek
Row, Row, Row Your Boat by Robin Muller
THE SEASONS SEWN, A YEAR IN PATCHWORK, by Ann Whitford Paul, illus. by Michael McCurdy, Browndeer Press/Harcourt Brace & Comp., 1996. (Hardcover, $16). "What can the patchwork patterns and their names tell us about the seasons and early life in this country?" Some patterns included are: SPRING / Album, Bear's Paw, and The Trail of the Covered Wagon, SUMMER / Baseball, Fish Block, and Corn & Beans, FALL / Broken Dishes, Little Giant (Lincoln/Douglas Debate), and Turkey Tracks, WINTER / Falling Timbers, Reel (spinning wheel), and Fox & Geese. The vivid illustrations are done on scratchboard.
Pet of the Met by Lydia & Don Freeman
RAINBOW FISH Arriving soon to my mailbox will be two beautiful Rainbow Fish handpuppets (Barnes and Nobles). They are nice, large puppets with a mouth that opens and closes. SO CUTE! I borrowed it from the librarian and tried echo singing with some first graders last week and, though three stinker boys refused to sing for me, most kids LOVED using the fish puppet. Just had to have my own! Soon I'll have one for me and one for the kids.
Random House Book of Poems for Children
12/07 RATA-PATA-SCATA-FATA by Phillis Gershator; ISBN: 0-316-30470-0. It's a darling little story suitable for early childhood. I've already [set] it to music: It's in the key of C Major and is scored in 4/4. Lyrics: Rata pata scata fata, Rata pata scata fata, Rata pata scata fata, all day long! (last time, "all NIGHT long!") The song is sung each time the phrase is mentioned in the book. It is then repeated. The instruments keep playing and the various groups of Orff instruments (soprano xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels) or categories of unpitched instruments (large percussion, membranes, wood, and metal) take turns improvising in C pentatonic (remove all F's and B's) for 8 measures. The phrase occurs 4 times in the book. Thus, we will create a large rondo: A - sing & play What National Standards have you covered in the lesson:
01/03RATTLEBONE ROCK by Sylvia Andrews, ill. by Jennifer Plecas, published in paperback by Harper Collins Publishers, 1995. It tells the story (in rhyme) of skeletons, ghouls, witches, and assorted other creatures who play a rock beat and dance in the graveyard on Halloween night. Eventually they are joined by all the townspeople, including the mayor (who bears an uncanny resemblence to our own mayor!). I have used this with classes from 1-3 and follow up with other activities about xylophones, telling a story with music, dancing, spirituals (we sing and dance to Ezekial Connected Dem Dry Bones). Lots of fun with this one and not at all frightening for little ones.
Skeletons... CLACKA-CLACK! (castanets on a stick)
At "everyone rocked...." I cue all sounds back in, and they make quite a din for about 20 seconds. On my cue, they begin to fade as I read on at "Now folks still talk..." (I speak through a small amp.both for extra volume and for a darker tone quality.) Sounds continue to fade until finally, after the last line is read, a stay sound or two brings us to about 10 seconds of total silence. (The darker the room the better, as far as the kids are concerned!) Hope this helps. It's not the easiest thing to describe without having the kids/instruments to demonstrate for you. We do the activity in 2nd and sometimes again in 3rd.
REMARKABLE FARKLE McBRIDE The cd is wonderful. John Lithgow makes a wonderful story teller.
ROOM ON THE BOOM by Julia Donaldson. It is published by Scholastic.The language is very discriptive and I'm going to use it to reinforce high/low pitch and to introduce rhythm ostinatos.The characters are a witch, a cat, a dog, a bird, a frog, and a dragon, oh! and the broom plays an important part. As the broom and it's riders comes down from the sky I will have the barred instruments play a descending glissando, as the broom takes off they will play an ascending glissando. Each character will have a rhythmic ostinato that will be played by unpitched percussion instruments (I haven't written the ostinatos yet). I will have each ostinato play every time the characters get on/off the broom. The dragon part will be played each time he talks. -- Contributed by Susan Young
Rondo in C. III. J. Wentworth. New York: Harper & Row.Fleischman, P. (1988)
ROSIE BACKSTAGE. It is written by Amanda Lewis and Tim Wynne-Jones and published by Kids Can Press Ltd. in Toronto. It is the story of a girl who goes to work with her mother. The mother is a props mistress, so the story touches on all aspects of the theater; kid descriptions of props, costume designer, costumes, jewelery, milliner, cobbler, superstitions, set designer, setting, set builders, stage manager, lighting, sound, music, Shakespearean language, poetry, administration, box office and publicity, The wooden O, boy actors, publication, William Shakespeare, the Director, make-up and wigs. Good book for a more detailed look into theatrical production. This info is woven into a plot that involves the Scottish Play (MacBeth- NEVER say its title, that is bad luck.) I LOVE the part on superstitions!
01/07 ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT Iza Trapani. AWESOME! THE kids are simply mezmerized when I sing each page to them! The illustrations are super good too. They come with cd's too, but I find I like singing them myself so I can control the speed of the book. -- Ms. Paula Scott
Row, Row, Row Your Boat by Robin Muller
RUNNY RABBIT - Shel Silverstein I ran across the cutest book, a newbie, I guess, from Shel Silverstein called "Runny Babbit" about animals, especially a bunny, but the consonants on word pairs were switched around. it rhymes, and it looks like it would make the cutest lesson plans for K-1. They could guess what the real words are supposed to be, come up with hand jives or use a simple cup routine -- Karen Stafford
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE DINOSAUR STOMP by Carol D. Shields; Great book; I added a refrain for the children and parents to recite and simply interjected this refrain about 8 times during the recitation. This is done as a rap and I played a keyboard rhythm to accompany the story. I held the book for the children to see and had the text printed out for myself so I could read and turn pages without looking at the book. Have all do a rhythmic "Booma Lacka" after each group of spoken words (See the dinosaurs coming down the track, Booma-Lacka-Booma-Lacka Whack, Whack, Whack) The text is all in rhyme with lots of long dinosaur names. The story is about a dance and how the dinosaurs create an earthquake. I gave the bass xylo a simple broken bordun and the alto xylos a crossover pattern (D-A-D-A). My plan was to set the pattern in D minor. I let my 5th grade students make the other decisions with the glocks and unpitched percussion. They used the text for clues as to what the music should sound like. Other students acted out the dinosaur parts, again based on the text (there are lots of action words). We created a volcano and earthquake scene by using scarves behind a partition and a large piece of brown fabric held by 2 students and wiggled parallel to the floor. Hope this makes sense! Those are just of few of the details from our work. I really let the students generate most of the ideas. Each 5th grade class performed the story in our music room for their lower el reading buddies. Everybody enjoyed it-the performers and the audiences! -- Contributed by D'Anne Ibarra
06/06 SCARY, SCARY HALLOWEEN by Erica Silverman, illus. S.D. Schindler (Quoted from Publishers Weekly: “A rhythmic text and a vibrant palette combine in a Halloween tale noteworthy for its finely tuned balance of drama and comedy.” -- Patricia Albritton
Shake, Rattle, and Strum by Sara Corbett
SHAKE DEM HALLOWEEN BONES by Nikola- Lisa. Check your library for this book (I think it's a Scholastic book) I wrote a simple minor melody for the "shake, shake, shake dem bones now..." refrain that repeats throughout the book. I give the kids shaker eggs, and they shake to the beat and sing whenever those words appear in the story. It is about various fairy tale characters attending a Halloween ball. The kinders love it and 1st and 2nd graders ask to do it each year. Here's the melody I made: Text: Shake, shake, shake dem bones now, shake shake, shake dem bones now, shake, shake, shake dem bones, at the hip hop halloween ball.. D F GFGA, D F GFGF, D F GFG G#G# A G FF E D. Each note goes with a word above. -- Barbara Williams
Shake My Sillies Out. III. David Allender. New York: Crown.Raffi.1987
01/07 SHOO FLY Iza Trapani. AWESOME! THE kids are simply mezmerized when I sing each page to them! The illustrations are super good too. They come with cd's too, but I find I like singing them myself so I can control the speed of the book. -- Ms. Paula Scott
Silent Night. New York: E. P. Dutton.Jeffers, S. (1984).
SILLY TILLY'S THANKSGIVING DINNER: I started out talking about Thanksgiving dinner--what do we like, etc. Read the story. We went back and had the students try to remember what each character brought to the dinner. Then we sang a song called "Here we go over to Silly Tilly's" which listed all the things. It's sung to "Here we go Round the Mulberry Bush". If you have long classes (mine are 30 minutes), you could even have the kids add verses about what THEY would bring.
THE SINGING SNAKE is written by Stefan Czernecki and Timothy Rhodes. It is published by Hyperion Paperbacks for Children. It is the folk tale explaining where the didgeridoo came from. Plot? On an island, the Old Man wanted to make a musical instrument in honor of the creature who had the most beautiful voice. As the story goes on, the snake knows that he is totally outclassed by the lark, so he decides to swallow the lark and hold it gently in the back of his throat. He enters the competition and wins. The Old Man goes off to make an instrument in the snake's shape. After the man leaves, the lark escapes. All of the creatures decide that they will never trust the snake again, will never speak to him again. Because no one would peak to him, the snake eventually lost his ability to talk, and could only hiss. The Old Man returned with a great horn in the shape of the snake. The snake slithered off in shame. "Today people call the island where these creatures lived Australia. They call the instrument the Old Man made a didgeridoo, and they refer to someone who cannot be trusted as a snake in the grass. // My 3-5 students loved it! A group of 3rd graders is turning it into a song story presentation for our informance in a couple of weeks. Teachers are asking me how I found it. It will be added to my school collection. I ordered it from Amazon.
THE SINGING SNOWBEAR written and illustrated
by Carol Grigg, Houghton Mifflin, 1999. The watercolor illustations
are fantastic! Summary: "In searching for the source of the special
music he hears, Snowbear meets and befriends the whale Uugah
Beluga, who teaches him to sing." Beyond the glorious art work,
the story is sweet, and there are connections to the Artic, whales,
family, friendship, etc. I know some are always on the look-out
for non-Christmas winter activities, so thought you might want to
check this out.
Sister Sky Somewhere
SMALL CLOUD by Ariane, Annie Gusman, ill., Walker & Company, ISBN 0-8027-7490-3 Good for creative movement
The SO-MI Books and tapes by Stuart Manins can be
purchased through The Kodaly-Related Publications
catalog; address:
Something Special for Me. New York: Mulberry.Williams, V.B. (1983)
SONG OF SIX BIRDS I found the most WONDERFUL storybook to introduce the recorder to my fourth graders! It's called "The Song of Six Birds" by Rene Deetlefs, illustrated by Lyn Gilbert c. 1999, published by Dutton Childrens Books (division of Penguin) I found it on the bargain book table at Books-A-Million. Set in Africa, a little girl receives a flute for a gift, but it only makes noise until she is able to capture the sounds of 6 birds. Then she can make MUSIC! Sweet story, lovely pictures, AND refers to the original meaning of "recorder" because it was supposed to be able to imitate the sound of birds. A perfect lead in! I made up little melodies for each of the bird calls (2 or 3 notes) and sang them as I came to them, and next week (yes, we're a year-around school, how did you guess????)we will try to put those sounds "into our recorders." Just as an experimental exploration - not naming notes or trying for perfection. - Contributed by Judith Schneider
Soup for Supper. III. S. Truesdell. New York: Harper & Row.Root, P. (1986)
STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING - Frost/Susan Jeffers
I use this book with my older children (3d grade & up) to encourage improvisation. First I improvise a melody and 'sing' the book (nice illustrations in mostly black and white) and then ask for kids to 'sing' a page using THEIR voices and THEIR melodies (if they aren't sure how to proceed - just have them sing one page (usually a partial phrase) on a single pitch. It might help for teacher to sing the first page to get things started. You might be pleasantly surprised!
01/07 SUMMERTIME from Porgie and Bess. The illustrations are beautiful and it's wonderful to sing it as you go through the pages. You could use it with the little ones like a lullaby and you could use it with the big kids as part of a study of the composer, George Gershwin. -- Meredith Harley Inserra
The Surrey with the Fringe on the Top by Rodgers & Hammerstein
TACKEY THE P. I basically use unpitched rhythm instruments for each of the
characters, and sound effect instruments for the other activities like
hunters (drums) splash, (vibraslap) marching feet, (temple blocks) and read
the story with the sound effects. The children play after every time you
mention the characters name, or the activity )(splash) It's a really cool
story because the characters are 5 penguins who are Goodly, Lovely, Angel,
Neatly, and Perfect, thus I use beautiful sounding instruments for
these...like finger cymbals, etc. and for Tackey I use a ratchet, or other
obnoxious sounding instrument. It's a great lesson on tone color, not to
mention the character issues addressed --like how it's ok to be different
than everyone else.
05/21 TAKE ME OUT OF THE BATHTUB (and other silly dilly songs). It's a beautiful hard covered book that sells for $15. It's written by Alan Katz and illustrated by David Catrow. Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books. It's a collection of "piggyback" songs that are sung to familiar melodies. Some of the catchy titles include:1. Take Me Out of the Bathtub (to the tune of ....ballgame) 2. The Yogurt Flies Straight From My Brother (to the tune of My Bonnie....) 3. I've Been Cleaning Up My Bedroom (to the tune of....railroad) 4. Stinky Stinky Diaper Change (to the tune of ...Twinkle Twinkle) 5. Go, Go, Go to Bed (to the tune of Row, Row...) 6. Bobby, Put the TV on (to the tune of....Polly Put the Kettle On) 7. Cranky Poodle (to the tune of Yankee Doodle) 8. Ripped My Favorite T-Shirt (to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot) 9. Sock in the Gravy (to the tune of Rockabye Baby) 10. I Have a Babysitter Here With Me (to the tune of I'm Bringin' Home a Baby Bumblebee)
06/10 Tanka Tanka Skunk by Steve Webb lends itself to rhythm
12/09 THANK YOU SARA HALE – website: (Sara Hale campaigned to make Thanksgiving a national holiday:
There's a Hole in the Bucket by Nadine Bernard Westcott
TODAY IS MONDAY Eric Carle book The song is in the back of the book and children use a different unpitched percussion instrument for each food. The song is cumulative. Children not playing a sound for a food use rhythm sticks to play the rhythm of "All you hungry children come and eat it up." which is sung at the end of each verse.
Random House Book of Poems for Children
THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED A FLY by Simms Taback, Scholastic Inc. Good for singing, echoes, etc.,
THREE PEBBLES AND A SONG by Eileen Spinelli, illustrated by S.D.Schindler. Dial Books for Young Readers. This story begins predictably with a young mouse being sent out to help his family prepare for winter. Unlike the rest of the family, however, he gathers nothing useful in the way of food or warmth for their survival. As the winter sets in, the family is warm and well fed, but they are BORED! That is when the **unnecessary** things contributed by the young mouse - a song, a dance, and juggling the three pebbles - become important to the mouse family, and they are never bored again! -- Connie Herbon
This is the house that Jack Built
This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie, illus. by Kathy Jacobsen; Published by Little, Brown & Company. It has all the verses of the song with great illustrations. Pete Seeger has a nice tribute to Woody in there too.
THUMP, THUMP, RAT-A-TAT-TAT by Gene Baer is great for first grade. It demonstrates crescendo/decrescendo by increasing/decreasing size of pictures and words. Have children respond with the refrain(thump etc.)to match the level of your voice on the preceding words. Use body percussion or drums.
TIKKI, TIKKI, TEMBO My second graders notate the rhythm of Tikki-Tikki-Tembo's name then
play it on rhythm instruments with the story retold by Arlene Mosel. - Gwen Fitzgerald
TIME FOR A RYME 06/05 Randy DeLelles and Jeff Kriske have the cutest little lesson with this song(& book) that I use with First Grade Every Year. There are little puppy dog reproducibles where you can put rhythm patterns (ta, ti-ti, or rest), then the kids put them in the right order for the A Section. Then for the B, C, D, etc., the kids name breeds of dogs, then figure out the rhythmic notation for those, put in a rondo form. I expand just a little for the A section and ask the kids to randomly select a solfege syllable to assign to each beat or beat division, ending on Do. We then play our "mystery tune" on Boomwhackers. The B, C, D, etc. sections are then spoken rhythmically. They hate stopping this project, if nothing else, because they want to show off that they know the names of dog breeds! -- Karen Stafford
THE TINY SEED by Eric Carle. Good for movement, different sounds or music for each season. (Use shortened movements from the first Brandenburg, it has four movements, like seasons, and the kids acted out the seasons behind a screen, matching their movements with the music.)
AND TO THINK WE THOUGHT WE'D NEVER BE FRIENDS Author:Mary Ann HobermanM Illustrator: Kevin Hawkes, Publisher:Crown Publishers,Inc., a Random House company.
I think I ordered it from Amazon....I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!
01/07 TODAY IS MONDAY by Eric Carle is a song, but I put different instruments playing the steady beat with it for each day of the week. - Barbara Lee
- I have Eric Carle's version of the book - and have a recording. The 1st graders are learning that proper nouns are capitalized. I put the days of the week (no beginning capital letter) on flashcards & had them displayed in random order. I asked the students what was wrong with the days - they were in the wrong order AND they're supposed to have an upper-case letter at the beginning. On the flip side of the cards I had the words written correctly so I turned over the cards, the students put the words in order. Then I showed them the book - on my recording it is first read aloud so we listened to that. Then I pulled out my flannel board pieces - made these a long time ago before there was Google images. Would be a cinch to make them now - back then I looked through various clip-art books till I found pictures of what I wanted. I sang the song, displaying the flannel board pieces as I sang. I then played the recording of the song & had the students sing along. This rotation we're beginning the class period by singing the song, then I put movement cards next to each day. -
01/07 TOO MUCH NOISE by Ann McGovern is another good one to put instruments with the different animals' sounds. The sounds layer on top of each other, creating a cacophony, then gradually the sounds are eliminated until only the quiet sounds of leaves swishing and a tea kettle whistling remain. I use quiet instruments like windchimes, a quiet shaker, finger cymbals, etc. for those sounds. This is one of my favorites. Children like it, too. - Barbara Lee
TRAIN SONG: by Diane Siebert. I use the first page of text as the vocal ostinato.
A TREE FOR ME by Nancy Van Laan. 2000, Alfred A. Knopf, N.Y. ISBN 0-679-89384-9
The storyline(in rhymed verse)is about a child looking for a tree to claim for himself. He looks and climbs 5 different trees before finding one that is not occupied. Each time he looks the verse includes: "Big one, small one, skinny one, tall one, old one, fat one, I choose that one!" For the first 5 trees the verse includes: " Up I go to the tippy tiptop. Uh-oh! Oh, no! Wait a minute. STOP! I'm mistaken. This one's taken."
TWO COOL COWS by Toby Speed, ill. by Barry Root Scholastic, 1996,
0-590-67299-1 It's a Scholastic book and has a really darling companion
cassette. The music is fun and the rhyming scheme is cool. My students
immediately wanted to hear it again. It seems the cows have eaten all
the grass in "Hillamadoon and Willimadoon, in Rattamadoon and
Hattamadeen and all of the places in between" so they borrow the "black
button-back boots" of the Huckabuck kids in order to jump over the moon
in search of green grass.
05/21 TWO SCARLET SONGBIRDS - A Story of Anton Dvorak by Carole Schaefer; another GREAT book! Illustrations by Elizabeth Rosen are incredible. Tells a story of Dvorak listening to the sounds of nature around him and using those as inspiration for his compositions. Very cool.
UNICEF'S "CHILDREN JUST LIKE ME" or "CELEBRATIONS!" Both introduce you to children from other countries, their families, their schools, what they eat, etc. Lots of great pictures & my kids enjoy learning this stuff from a kid's point of view.
01/07 UP, UP, DOWN by Robert Munsch, are delightful books to teach melodic direction on barred instruments. -- Barbara Lee
12/13 UP, UP, DOWN Robert Munsch http://robertmunsch.com/book/up-up-down#
VERY BUSY SPIDER Set the recurring phrase to music, ("The spider didn’t answer…..") T. plays BX part that reflects the rhythm later played by the guiro. (These lessons are also filled with other stuff, not just the book experiences)
01/07 VERY LONELY FIREFLEW, THE I've have used [this book] by Eric Carle. The Kindergarten students help by using their voices on the word "flew". This is similar to using the fire engine sound. They also help with their vocal explorations of dog, cat, owl and firework sounds. -- Doug in Colorado
THE VERY QUIET CRICKET by EricCarle. Assign an instrument to each insect sound and repeat all the insect sounds that have appeared so far after each new insect appears. For the luna moth, tie some colorful scraves to a child's wrists and have them silently fly around the room. I have done this with young children (ages 4-6) and they really enjoyed it!
THE VOICE OF THE WOOD III. F. Clement. New York: Dial.Clement, C. (1988)
12/09 WATER DANCE by Thomas Locker Quote from Amazon review: "Some people say that I am one thing. / Others say that I am many. / Ever since the world began / I have been moving in an endless circle . . . I am the rain." So begins the text of this unusual introduction to the water cycle. The book features a free-verse narrative illustrated by landscape and seascape paintings that show water in various forms referred to in the text: "I am the waterfall," "I am the clouds," or "I am the thunderhead."
WAY UP HIGH IN A TALL GREEN TREE by Jan Peck. I used it last week and just wanted to share. The story is about a little girl who uses her imagination to transform her bunk bed full of stuffed animals into a jungle of rainforest animals. The drawings are very colorful and over-sized so that they can be seen by everyone in the class from a distance. It's great because the little girl meets 9 animals and the moon. That offers 10 opportunities for sound effects.
WAVES IN THE BATHTUB Richmond Hill, Ontario: North Winds.Fernandes, E. (1993)
01/07 WE’RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT [This is] one of the very first activities I do with PreKs each year by Michael Rosen. We use hand drums, playing a steady beat on the rhyme part, then create different effects with thedrums on the parts where they're spashing through the river, stumbling through the trees, etc. I read and play the drum at the same time, and the kids do a good job. It's an easy way to assess who can keep a steady beat at the beginning of the year, too. To keep down the volume, we may keep the steady beat using only one finger, two fingers, etc. - Barbara Lee
Whale Song. III. E. Young. New York: G. P. Putnams Sons.Johnston, T. (1987)
WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD by Bob Thiele. Then I have the kids illustrate each section. I take pictures of them with my digital camera and put them into a powerpoint slide show. We then put the slide show with the song. It's really cool! - Contributed by Heather Augustine (Can also use scarves with the music)// I just did this song for an assembly. The children painted pictures very much like the book, watercolors and using oil pastels for an art project. Then they held up the picture according to the line it went with. There are skies of blue (picture of a blue sky). Then I taught the kindergarten to sing and sign the song. I had an old album of the song and put it on CD and they sang, held up the picture and signed. I also had put it on a powerpoint, but to see it on the wall, you couldn't see the kindergartens signing it. - Contributed by Danece Workman
WHAT CHARLIE HEARD ! I just found this wonderful book by Mordicai Gerstein. It is about Charles Ives! It is fantastic. The artwork is just GREAT, in fact, I am thinking of stealing that idea (you just HAVE to see it!) for a bulletin board. It describes how he heard EVERYTHING from the time he was born, etc. The pictures are of the action of the story, but around the pictures and through the pictures are the "sounds" that he heard. GREAT BOOK. Very, very busy - like his head must have been!
What Does the Rain Play? III. H. Sorenson. New York: Macmillan.Carlstrom, N. W. (1993)
WHAT MAKES A RAINBOW? By Betty Ann Schwartz, Dona Turner, ill., A Magic Ribbon Book, Piggy Toes Press; Good for singing, echoes, etc.,
The Wheels on the Bus by Paul Zelinsky; The Wheels on the Bus by Maryann Kovalski
WHEN THE WINTER COMES BY Nancy Van Laan, Susan Gaber, ill., Scholastic Inc. Good for creative movement
Where the Buffalo Roam. Nashville: Ideals Children Books. Gries, J. (1992)
WHERE DOES THE WIND GO? By Marcia Vaughan, Karen Hopkins, ill., MONDO Publishing, ISBN 1-57255-007-4 Good for creative movement
10/01 WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: I saw a performance of Where the Wild Things Are (opera) years ago at
Lincoln Center. The music is very contemporary, through-composed. The
costumes were incredible - giant 20 foot monsters exactly like the
illustrations. Sendak himself did the costuming. In the opera when the
monsters sing they sing in Yiddish - he based them on his memories of his
uncles at family gatherings when he was a child.
Whistle for Willie. New York: Penguin.Keats, E.J. (1977).
ZIN, ZIN THE VIOLIN by Lloyd Moss- I have a video from the Scholastic Video Collection that has the Zin Zin story with music by Marvin Hamlisch. The title is "How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? and more stories that rhyme". I found it in a bin at the grocery store for about $10 but I see there is a website on the video www.scholastic.com You might find it there or go on Amazon and search. The students love that story and "All the Colors of the Earth". The other stories are "In the Small, Small Pond" and the dinosaur story from the title. -- Diane Volkman YANG THE YOUNGEST AND HIS TERRIBLE EAR by Lemsey Namioka. There is one with Beethoven in the title, but it's bout a kid in a trailer park who plays violin and Dad wants him to concentrate on baseball... Linda Barnhart "LITTLE RAT MAKES MUSIC" by Monika Bang-Campbell (Ill. Molly Bang). It is about a rat who receives a violin, but doesn't like to practice, and how she receives the motivation to keep working and "make the music of her dreams". The book cover says ages 6-9, so most appropriate for 3rd grade. --- Linda Roberts
05/21 I love "Thump, Thump, Rat-a-Tat-Tat" by Gene Baer. Terrific for teaching dynamics and rhythm patterns.
05/21 I've gotten alot of my big books from Sam's Club. They don't always carry them, but several times a year they'll get a shipment -- and they go fast -- ! The price is less than half of what they'd be at a education store.
05/21 JUMP FROG, JUMP I do an activity with Jump, Frog, Jump where each character/item is a different 4 beat rhythmic pattern. We play the pattern on instruments when that character is mentioned in the book.
05/21 My school library has "Abiyoyo" in a big book. I use it w/ the 2nd grade Silver Burdett recording every year. The text varies a bit from the recording, but the kids stay rivetted and usually want to hear it again.
05/21 FREIGHT TRAIN by Donald Crews; we do a rhythmic chorus at the end of ever 2 pages - it's easy to add instruments (maracas and sticks) in 4/4: Choo, choo, choo, choo (2x-eighth notes) Choo, Choo, Choo (rest) [quarter notes]
05/21 I LOVE big books. Some of my kids' favorites are Abiyoyo, Miss Mary Mack, Little Red Hen, and Scuppers the Sailor Dog. I use them with pre-k through 2.
05/21 RAINBOW FISH - I read the story first (unless they have recently read it) and then after a brief discussion about how fish move and what the ocean sounds like (under water) I simply show them the pictures as the music plays.
The picture book of "What a Wonderful World" is good. I also have "On the DAy You Were Born. I also have a cute book called the "Little Puppy Rap" It's one of those countdown things.
05/21 I love "Thump, Thump, Rat-a-Tat-Tat" by Gene Baer. Terrific for teaching dynamics and rhythm patterns.
I use "Orchestranimals" and "Chicken Soup with Rice."
My favorite ones are "Eency Weency Spider" which I use to make an integrated arts lesson. We have made books in the past. Read several versions and made a venn diagram, etc. and made up our own long story. I like "I've Been Working on the Railroad" Austrian Went Yodeling "Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly", etc.,
09/03 THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE OF JONATHON TOOMEY--it's a wonderful story! We did
this last year at our Christmas Eve service.
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS by Clement C. Moore...in my family...we have a Christmas Eve tradition that perhaps you could adapt to your classroom. We always ACT OUT all the parts and videotape it. Yes...corny, I know but it gets more hilarious each year. We all try to outdo each other. Sometimes, we have so much, we switch around parts and perform it again!
BRIGHT STAR, BRIGHT STAR WHAT DO YOU SEE? by Cassandrre Maxwell. In the similar vein as Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you See. If you are able to use sacred text at your school, this lends itself well to steady beat, rhythm, rhyme, etc.
MESSIAH...The Wordbook for the Oratorio with painting by Barry Moser is a beautiful book to share with upper grades studying the Messiah. But I believe it is definitely for upper level and adults due to the some of the paintings. I probably would not use it for school but would use it for discussion with a youth group, Bible study, etc.
MARY DID YOU KNOW? Another beautiful, beautiful book by Mark Lowry with illustrations by Phil Boatwright. If you know this song, it isbeautifully illustrated in this book. Again...only if you can do sacred.
AN EARLY AMERICAN CHRISTMAS by Tomie de Paola's - A book that I like if you need a break from preparing any American Christmas programs, Gives great background and provides a nice break from singing and rehearsing.
FAVORITE BOOKS:
The Old King and His Fiddler Four by Inez Schubert and Lucille Wood -Bomar book that comes with recording discusses all the string instruments
Tom the Piper by Inez Schubert and Lucille Wood -Bomar book that comes with recording discusses the wind instruments
Zin! Zin! The Violin by Lloyd Moss -about a violinist who combines with many other instruments to make an orchestra; There is a great video. The story takes about 10 mins., but then Lavar Burton talks about beat and rhythm with a demonstration by STOMP. It's a video well worth the money. You can usually get them through Music in Motion - or I just ask my local bookstore Borders and they can get it. The book and cassette tape are good too if you don't want the video.
Ty's One Man Band by Mildred Walter-about a boy who plays in his own one man band
The Maestro Plays by Bill Martin Jr. Published by Henry Holt and Company, NY. The artwork is done by Vladimir Radunsky and is very bold and catchy. The language is very expressive. For example; The Maestro plays. He plays proudly. He plays loudly...He plays reachingly. He plays beseechingly." Just an example of some of the textures in the literature. Fascinating - creative.
Abiyoyo - Pete Seeger I've used it lots of ways every year...sometimes when singing lullabies!! (Abiyoyo is actually an African lullaby and recorded in one of the new K or l or 2 music texts...can't remember which)...there's a great Reading Rainbow video of this with Pete Seeger reading and singing (it's actually his story). This is also a great story to dramatize...and to discuss poor choices/courage/ostracizing/power of music/ukeleles/etc....This story was on ancient Seeger album but I could never use it because of his one profanity in it....Kids love this story and they have lots of discussion questions about where is the mother?...and how the boy felt when his father tricked other people.
ALBUQUERQUE TURKEY with "Darling Clementine." Judy Schneider
Hickory, Dickory, Dock: The Completed Hickory Dickory Dock by Jim Aylesworth
How Much is That Doggie in the Window? Iza Trapani Whispering Coyote Press. Like other Trapani favorites, it has the music in the back and includes many other cute verses. I bought the book because my K's and 1st's love, I.T.'s stuff, but as I checked out the words tonight, I found they are a great take-off for math connections. In the story, the dog costs $60, but the boy only has $11.50, so he sets about earning the rest of the money, and each succeeding verse continues the adventure. Each verse could easily inspire at least one new math problem, created by teacher or students. The song itself is, of course, a fun way to explore high/low - big dog has LOW barks and little dog has HIGH barks, and it's also in meter of 3.
Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing, James Weldon Johnson, illus. Jan Gilchrist (Scholastic)
Love Can Build a Bridge....based on a song by the Judds and beautifully illustrated with pictures of children being kind to one another, forming a bridge, as the recipient of kindness on one page becomes the giver on the next. It comes with a tape of the song, which is lovely, but easy enough for kids to learn quickly. I've been using it my classes at the end of the period. I call the kids together on the rug, and tell them that, since we've seen alot of pain and cruelty around us in the last couple of weeks, I wanted to show them something about being good to one another, taking care of one another, and showing kindness and love.First I read them the book and point out the sequence of the pictures, then I play the tape and turn the pages.....they are so attentive it's astounding! One of my second graders said, "Hey! This is a REAL song!" Great.
Mary Had a Little Lamb by Sarah Josepha Hale
Old Black Fly...Jim Aylesworth (ABC book/ could move, sing or add sounds)actually an alphabet book. It is sung to the tune of "Joshua Fit the Battle Of Jericho." "The Old Black Fly's been buzzin' around, buzzin around, buzzin around(...I said shoo fly, shoo, fly shoo!! )'The puppet was obviously a fly, and kids of all ages loved this. I stared with K-2, thinking they would benefit from the alphabet part. One day I got brave and introduced it in a 5th grade who enjoyed it just as much! The puppet was obviously a fly, and kids of all ages loved this. I stared with K-2, thinking they would benefit from the alphabet part. One day I got brave and intoduced it in a 5th grade who enjoyed it just as much!! It is sung to the tune of "Joshua Fit the Battle Of Jericho." FUNNY NOTE: After reading it with one kind. class last week, I asked in a hushed whisper after the next to the last page ("swat"), "What happened to the fly"? One very observant Kindy said, ..."He got caked!"
One Light, One Sun, Raffi, illus. by Eugenie Fernandes (Crown Pub.)
SUMMERTIME One of our favorites uses the beautiful picture book "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess. It is a hard cover by George Gershwin and Dorothy Heyward. paintings by Mike Wimmer. pub. Simon & Schuster '99. The paintings are so appealling to everyone, including the African American and Somali students in my classes. -Nancy Paxson
The Surrey with the Fringe on the Top by Rodgers & Hammerstein<
The Teddy Bears' Picnic, (book/tape) illus. by Bruce Whatley (Harper Collins)
AUTUMN LEAVES~Ken Robbins' w/ Vivaldi's AUTUMN first mvt. (from Four
Seasons)
THE BANSHEE Karen Ackerman/David Ray w/ Henry Cowell's BANSHEE
THE BANZA~Diane Wolkstein/Marc Brown w/ New Grass Revival's BIG FOOT
(Bela Fleck playing banjo/from Friday Night in America cd).
BARN DANCE by Bill Martin Jr. with Hoedown by Aaron Copland
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST to the background of----------"Conversations of Beauty and the Beast", by Ravel
01/03 BIRDS OF A FEATHER by Willi Baum with The Aviary by Saint-Saens
I love using classical music when I read to the children. Check out Listen With Your Heart. Go to [email protected] This lady actually does story scoring. Neat idea
CAN YOU HEAR IT? The kids love it. It is a book of works of art that has been paired with classical music selections. They were totally into it the entire time we were on the activity (about 20 mins.).
THE DANCING SKELETON ~Cynthia C. DeFelice's w/ Saint-Saens' DANSE
MACABRE
DREAM SNOW by Eric Carle - w/ Debussy's THE SNOW IS DANCING (from
Children's Corner Suite)
EARTH DANCE by Joanne Ryder with Serenade in D by Antonin Dvorak
THE GHOST EYED TREE Bill Martin,Jr.----Peer Gynt Suite (Grieg)sections 3 & 4
GIVING TREE, THE Appalachian Spring combined with "The Giving Tree."
THE GIVING TREE with the "Pathetique Symphony"-Tchaikovsky-Finale: Adagio
THE GIVING TREE with "Sonate," op.13, (Pathetique) for piano
01/03 GRANDFATHER TWILIGHT by Barbara Berger with "Clair de Lune" by Debussy
DAWN by Uri Shulevitz (no text)-------- "Sunrise" by Grofe
I SEE A SONG by Eric Carle -------------------- "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," final movement by Mozart I SEE SONG Eric Carle A wonderful song to use with this book is "Bydlo" (The Ox Cart) from Pictures at an Exhibition, by Modest Moussorgsky.
THE KISSING HAND by Audrey Pem with Liebestraum #3 in Ab by Franz Liszt
LITTLE BEAVER AND THE ECHO with Cristofori’s Dream by David Lanz
THE RAINBOW FISH--a beautiful book , story about sharing. (Or "Fishes" Brian Wildsmith) The music to accompany (you may have guessed) Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, "Aquarium." 01/03 RAINBOW FISH Arriving soon to my mailbox will be two beautiful Rainbow Fish handpuppets (Barnes and Nobles). They are nice, large puppets with a mouth that opens and closes. SO CUTE! I borrowed it from the librarian and tried echo singing with some first graders last week and, though three stinker boys refused to sing for me, most kids LOVED using the fish puppet. Just had to have my own! Soon I'll have one for me and one for the kids.
RONDO IN C~Paul Fleischman/Janet Wentworth w/ Beetoven's RONDO IN C
(piano sonata).
ROSIE'S WALK by Pat Hutchins ---------------- "Children's March" by Grainger
SHADOW translated and illustrated by Marcia Brown----From the French of Blaise Cendrars (poet)-African legend of 'Shadow' use with "Tocatta & Fugue in d" J.S. Bach
SNOW ON SNOW Cheryl Chapman---Reflections of the Moon Hua Jan Jun (CD: Popular Chinese Classics)
THE SNOWMAN by Raymond Briggs -------"Snowflakes are Dancing" Debussy (from Children's Corner Suite) I use: "Au Clair De La Lune"
SNOWMEN AT NIGHT by Caralyn Buehner
THE SNOWY DAY Ezra Jack Keats---Colorful Clouds (Cantonese Folk Melody)
(CD: Popular Chinese Classics)
TIM O’TOOLE AND THE WEE FOLK with Irish Washerwoman
THE TINY SEED by Eric Carle movement with shortened movements from the first Brandenburg, it has four movements, like seasons, and the kids acted out the seasons behind a screen, matching their movements with the music
TUESDAY by David Weisner "Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner (from Der Ring des Nibelungen)
THE VERY LONELY FIREFLY "Catching Butterflies" (CD:Pop.Chinese Classics)
Beethoven in Paradise by Barbara O'Connor. The boys in the book are younger (the guy in Beethoven is 13) but the situations are relevant. Beethoven in Paradise is about a boy who knows he is a musician, but has to hide it because his abusive (Mostly verbal) father thinks music is sissy and wants him to play baseball. He starts to realize his father is wrong, and therein there is a story. Also it would be cool to find a biography or autobiography of a musician the kids would know. Someone popular, maybe someone who died young. It sends such a message about the destructive lifestyles out there.
Call Down the Moon: Poems of Music by Myra Cohn Livingston
Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter I bought "Follow the Drinking Gourd" this year and it came with a CD in the back of the book.I got it through Music in Motion catalog. It is so great! I will use it this year during Black History month. If anyone has Clarisworks (for Mac) and is interested in making a transparency &/or handout for Follow the Drinking Gourd, I've got one prepared with the stars of The Big Dipper/Small Dipper already laid out in proper relationship with that 5:1 ratio for finding Polaris. Just e-mail me directly ([email protected]) and I'll enclose the Clarisworks file in a mass-mailing to whom-ever's interested in a day or two. Just be sure to let me know which version of Clarisworks (Appleworks) you're running. I even made little palm-sized Underground Railroad "tickets," - the same document duplicated four-to-a-page and sliced up w/paper cutter using your page set-up in the print menu or PrintChef if you've got that (a great little program). Saves lots of paper if the text is large enough and then the children have their own copy of the song to take with. Kindergarteners especially love this sort of thing - I think it helps them feel literate, a quick and cheap way to give them something to take home besides the mere musical memories.
The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, illustrated by Peter Spier (Dell) Reading Rainbow has a wonderful video
out on "Follow the Drinking Gourd" They use the song (a slightly different melody, same words) throughout the video. It is WONDERFUL! I checked it out from our public library.
"The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight, More poems to trouble your sleep" By Jack Prelutsky, Illustrated by Arnold Lobel. I read the poem to the class, first warning them that I was only going to read it this once (I wanted them in their best listening mode). I asked them to pick out words that created sounds in their minds. After I had read the poem, I asked for their suggestions, we added their sound effects then read the poem again, pausing after their word for the sounds to have their effect. A simple lesson plan really, but very effective. The kids wanted to do it over and over again. Words that created sounds in their minds)
Huron Carol, The beautiful book, illustrated by Frances Tyrrell Dutton Children's Books, NYISBN 0-525-44909-4
Hush by Mingfong Ho a Thai story, great pictures, easy to add instruments for animals, and use with a lullabye
01/02 IN TIME OF THE DRUMS by Kim Siegelson, illustrated by Brian Pinkney
Hyperion Books for Children, NY 1999.
I would pair this book with songs & games of Bessie Jones from the Georgia
Sea Islands. You can find these in the book "Step It Down" by Bessie Smith.
You can also find one of these games in MK8 Vol. 10 #3 by Judith Cook
Tucker. Its called "Uncle Jessie" and is a game song from the islands. There
is a lot of good history in the article Judith wrote and an interesting
explanation for the lyrics and actions of the game. Other good games include
"Draw Me A Bucket of Water" (gr 3 STM & Step It Down, Jump Jim Joe) and
"Little Johnny Brown" (Step It Down and Jump Jim Joe) The Bessie Jones
versions of the songs get the orignal credits.
Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear by Barbara O'Connor
Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing, James Weldon Johnson, illus. Jan Gilchrist (Scholastic)
Love Can Build a Bridge....based on a song by the Judds and beautifully illustrated with pictures of children being kind to one another, forming a bridge, as the recipient of kindness on one page becomes the giver on the next. It comes with a tape of the song, which is lovely, but easy enough for kids to learn quickly. I've been using it my classes at the end of the period. I call the kids together on the rug, and tell them that, since we've seen alot of pain and cruelty around us in the last couple of weeks, I wanted to show them something about being good to one another, taking care of one another, and showing kindness and love.First I read them the book and point out the sequence of the pictures, then I play the tape and turn the pages.....they are so attentive it's astounding! One of my second graders said, "Hey! This is a REAL song!" Great.
MYSTERIOUS THELONIUS great book by Chris Raschka Raschka
chooses a different color for each of the solfegge syllables--and notates
the first minute or so of "Misterioso" (one of Thelonius Monk's famous piano
pieces) using the colors and the text of the book. It makes for a really
neat lesson. I've had my students listen to the music first, then use their
imaginations to create a picture of what they "see" as they listen. Then I
show them the Raschka book and help them figure out what he has done. It is
*such* a neat book. Hard to explain without seeing it. (I usually do w/3rd
grade).
THE PATCHWORK QUILT, by Valerie Flournoy, illus. Jerry Pinkney, Dial Books. (a Reading Rainbow book) The story and illustrations and focus on the African American family are great for my classes, however, it is quite long, as picture books go.
01/02 Woody Guthrie: Poet of the People by Bonnie Christensen
(2001, Alfred A. Knopt, New York): beautifully illustrated, thorough tale of the legendary
singer/songwriter's life and his influence on American culture and
music. from his poor Oklahoma roots, to his migrant days, his WWII
Merchant Marine days, to his final struggle with Huntington's.
especially poignant emphasis on his "giving a voice" to the suffering
dust-bowl farm families of the 30's.
The Star Spangled Banner illus. by Peter Spier
05/21 TWO SCARLET SONGBIRDS - A Story of Anton Dvorak by Carole Schaefer; another GREAT book! Illustrations by Elizabeth Rosen are incredible. Tells a story of Dvorak listening to the sounds of nature around him and using those as inspiration for his compositions. Very cool.
There is a publication called Music Through Children's Literature: Theme and Variations by Donna B. Levene
for those of you who are interested in using children's lit to teach music and vice versa.... The lesson plans for each story revolve around the concepts of rhythm, melody, form and style, instruments, dances history and use such books as Possum Come a Knockin', Chicka Chick Boom Boom, Berloiz the Bear, etc....about 40 different books and lesson plans.
Kit Eakle has written an annotated bibliography of books that are great for use in music classrooms. His own book, "In my Grandmothers Garden" is gorgeous. -- Denise Gagne www.musicplay.ca 7
Half Price books gives teacher discounts and they have
nice music books!
Materials: Assorted instruments: (substitute as appropriate to available resources) bar chimes or wind chimes, large drum of choice with beater, rhythm sticks, finger cymbals, several woodblocks with different sounds, small frame drum with beater, cabasa, small tomtom, wooden wind chimes, temple or piccolo blocks of 3 sizes, several large guiros, several maracas or other rattles, alto glock or triangle.
-Other: Cue card for each instrument, showing which sound will be represented by that instrument. 4 reader cards showing dynamics terms: p=soft, mf= medium loud, f=loud, ff=very loud. “Grizzly Bear,” a traditional children’s song found in Silver Burdett MAKING MUSIC, K level.
Objectives:
-Play/speak expressively with appropriate dynamics
-Use a variety of sound sources to add expression to literature
-Respond to music with drama
Previous knowledge: basic playing techniques and ability to watch for cues
- previous experiences with dynamic markings & how to apply them to singing/speaking
Time needed: one to two class periods to cover book and song
Procedure: Show book cover and briefly discuss title, author, illustrator.
- Show inside cover (cave on snowy hillside) and discuss what students think is happening in the cave.
- Introduce each instrument and its character or activity. Distribute cards/instruments to students. Duplicate instruments as needed so all students have at least one to play or have a speaking part.
- Discuss levels of dynamics on cards (p, mf, f, ff) and how to apply them to our speaking.
- Teacher read book (unless otherwise noted) with students adding sounds as appropriate. There are no page numbers, so I’ve included the first word or two from each page with the suggested instrument(s) or other sounds.
“In a cave…” - gentle wind chimes or bar chimes “Cuddled…” - beater on large drum plays softly. Suggested rhythm: beat / beat / rest / rest / (slow and repeated as needed) This “snoring” will return throughout the book, getting a bit louder each time.
“The cold winds…” - selected students sign “wind” and make appropriate sounds
(drum continues)
“An itty-bitty mouse….” - random rhythm stick taps
“Mouse squeaks….” - finger cymbals
“The coals…” - random “pops” on assorted woodblocks or boxes
“But the bear…” - drum beat cont.
“Two glowing eyes….” - beater on small frame drum “hops” softly
“Mouse sips…” - cabasa “Hare burps….” - one beat on small drum
“But the bear….” - drum beat continues
“A badger….” - wooden wind chime
“As they nibble….” - high / med / low taps on temple or piccolo blocks
“ But the bear….” cont. drum
“They tweet….” - cont. drum
“In a cave….” - cont. drum and all sounds lightly at random
“Then a small pepper fleck….” - one alto glock tone or triangle
“He blows…..” - all or several voices on big “aaaaa-choo!”
“And….WAKES UP!” - Reader 1: (p) “Bear gnarls….snarls.” Reader 2: (mf)
“Mouse squeaks….” - finger cymbals
“But his friends….” - wind chimes
Extension of activity: Teach the song “Grizzly Bear” without applying dynamic levels. Lead students in discussion of what dynamic levels we should apply to each part of the song. Discuss what we could do to dramatize the song. Sing and dramatize as time and interest allow. - Contributed by Connie Herbon
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You can also download off of iTunes. -- Anne Lyon in Martin, SD
06/05 I have used this tale with my 6th graders. We explored the blues style and wrote a blues song about the billy goats crossing the bridge, which was repeated for each goat. We also used a piece from the volumes for the "traveling music." We shared our interpretation with younger classes who could come to the music room to see our "presentation." VERY informal. Costumes? MINIMAL! grey t-shirts and stick-on beards (for the goats, of course!). -- Martha Evans Osborne
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Nanny-Goats-Gruff-Kaplan/dp/0887344097
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The Boy Who Loved Music.III. J. Lasker. New York:Viking.Lasker, D.(1979)
I used only notes C and F on the glocks. Each time they heard that motive, they played those notes on the glock...then when each animal reacted to the robber's return, they were allowed to play for the animal.
An e-book of The Bremen Town Musicians. http://www.grimmfairytales.com/
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BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS Instruments for each animal--scratching cat/guiro,
biting dog/ratchet, kicking donkey/timpani, rooster/triangle; Bass ostinato for traveling music---"Brementown, Brementown, we are going to Brementown" ----G E C G E C D D GG G E E C ---(Last time, " We won't go, we are happy here")---Donkey's sad song: ---Sad,,, Sad,, I'm so sad, ---C G C C G----Robber music : C Eflat G C Aflat GFEflatD ---Ta Ta Ta Ta TAAAA Ti Ti Ti ti ----"Thinking/planning" music: Wood block steady beat; "Danger" music - minor tremolo on xylos - Contributed by Janet Carson
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10/04 BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS - I used the Music Connection version of the Bremen Town Musicians (in the first grade book, but kinder can do it easily) and had each animal in the story represented by an instrument. This gives them a chance to hear the different tambres and play independently to a steady beat. There is also a point in the story where they can play all together, too. If you have the Big Books for Music Connection, there is a page and a set of Musiclings that go with the story ( a little scotch tape helps them actually "cling"). -- Ruth Garcia
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BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU HEAR? I use the words: "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? (class)
I see a ____ looking at me." (one person)
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BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR book by Eric Carle. We do it on so-mi la and do, then sit in a circle with puppets and do our own animals in place of it. (gray mouse, gray mouse, what do you see? I see a panda looking at me.) Great chance for solo singing/pitch matching assessment. - Stacy DeVaney
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The Brave Little Mouse Stuart Manins
The Bremen Town Musicians by Ilse Plume
Brother Eagle, Sister Sky
Them the monkeys go tsz tsz tsz(q,q,half) na na na na na na (do do la re
do la) two eighths two eighths , quarter quarter.
Pitch inventory: sol, mi, low do
Formation: students seated in a circle around "middle". Each is
given 1 of the caps. Discuss/identify colors & "middle" as needed.
Part I - tune: s m s m s m-m s m (sung by teacher)
words: "Red cap, red cap, who has-the red cap?"
Part II - student with red cap answers "I do!" while proudly
holding up named cap. (This can be spoken or sung on sol-mi.)
Part III - class sings:"Red cap, red cap, ___has the red cap.
Put it in the middle and shake, shake, shake!"
(tune: 1st line same as Part I. 2nd line: s-s m-m s-s m s m d)
Class points at student holding the cap as they sing Part III, then
as that student places cap in the "middle," all shake pointer finger
3X on "shake, shake, shake."
Repeat all parts until all colors have been put in middle. Repeat as
needed for enough turns for all to have a chance to be the "named"
cap holder.
Cat Goes Fiddle-I-Fee by Paul Galdone
The Cat's Midsummer Jamboree. NY:Philomel.Kherdian, D.&Hogrogian, N. (1990)
The Cat Who Loved to Sing. New York: Knopf.Hogrogian, N. (1988).
Charlie Parker Played Be Bop by Chris Raschka
Children Go Where I Send Thee. Minneapolis, MN:Winston.Shoemaker, K. (1980).
http://www.cinnamonbear.co.uk/ -- Sandi May in GA
I changed the repeated refrain to:
Click Clack Moo (q q q r) Click Clack Moo (q q q r)
Clickety Clackety (ee q ee q) Click Clack Moo (q q q r)
I added adjusted the text to add in a few more refrains so the kids would
get to play it a few more times, though as is will work, especially if the instruments are rotated around for a second and third read through.
1. Have the kids clap the rhythm pattern and say the words.
2. Add rhythm sticks to the pattern, and practice a few times. (click sticks together)
3. Add the cowbell on the word "Moo" (either with the sticks or replacing the sticks on that particular word), and practice a few times.
4. Read the story with their rhythm stick/cow bell accompaniment.
The Doorbell Rang
I had the children use their fingers to make falling snow with the beginning
of the recording, then read the book to the students while the music played.
We then acted out the book while replaying the music. I used animal puppets
for the five animals, white scarves for snow, and the glockenspiel at the
end to reproduce the sounds the book makes at the end. Before we acted out
the story I reviewed the sequence and chose the child who was giving the
most answers to what came next to be the main character, the farmer. The
kid who was bouncing around became the Tree - and trees can't walk. Snow
doesn't talk. So we ended up with the lights dimmed and a beautiful snow
scene and a decorated tree at the end.
The kids absolutely loved it and begged to do it again. If you are not
familiar with the book, this does not make much sense I'm sure. See if your
librarian has the book. This week I'm expanding the start I made with snow
songs and instruments. This could be a solution for those who are tired and
frazzled. I kept it so low key and lovely that every class ended with a
sort of "aahhh" feeling. It felt so good to move with the kids and be snow.
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01/02 DREAM SNOW Read book. Play music and act out the story with toilet
paper tissue streamers in your hands. here's how we did it...
Dream Snow by Eric Carle: bk about a farmer who naps and dreams that
snow comes on the once-green grass and covers him in his chair and all
his beloved animals in soft blankets. he wakes to find it has really
snowed and goes out to decorate his tree for Christmas. there's even a
button to push that makes twinkly chime sounds.
Lesson: Prep. activity (opt.):
~kids come into dark classroom while snowy type song is playing (i used
S.Burd. recording of Debussy's "Snow is Dancing" from Children's Corner
Suite).
~they lay down and pretend they're dreaming about snow.
~while music plays and kids "nap" teacher drapes toilet paper streamers
over the kids saying in a soft voice, "...and while they sleep, the snow
comes and covers them with a soft blanket..."
~at end of song, turn on lights saying, "...and when the sun came up
they slowly woke and found the snow on the ground next to them..."
Next: ~make a pile of tissue (trying not to mash it) and come sit in front of the class.
~intro. and read the book to them.
~talk about characters: farmer Moser (not Santa!) and animals: 1-5
~choose child to be farmer Moser. others are snow clouds. turn out
lights, play song again and have kids dance around the sleeping farmer
finally covering him with tissue "snow."
~then act out the animal part: choose animals 1-5. repeat lesson
covering them while they sleep.
~each time have the snow clouds run away and hide when the snow is all
used up.
~turn on lights and say, "...and when the sun came out the clouds were
gone...and the animals/farmer woke..."
this was sooooooo neat!!!! I'm doing it at all my schools!!!
Earthsong by Sally Rogers, illus. by Melissa Mathis Earthsong is sung to the tune of "Over in the Meadow" and is about endangered species. This makes it a great book for correlating with the classroom
06/04 DON GATO Check out the book "Senor Don Gato" by illustrator John Manders. It's fabulous!
-- Kristy Hewitt
The Amazing Impossible Erie Canal by Cheryl Harness
The Farmer in the Dell. Boston: Little, Brown.Zuromski, D. (1978).
A Farmyard Song: An Old Rhyme w/New Pictures. NY: North-South.Manson, C. (1992)
Fiddle-I-Fee by Jakki Wood; Fiddle-I-Fee by Melissa Sweet
Fiddle-i-fee: a Traditional American Chant. Boston: Little, Brown.Stanley, D. (1979)
The First Book of Jazz. New York: Franklin Watts.Hughes, L. (1976)
First Song Ever Sung by Laura Krauss Melmed
Five Live Bongos by George Ella Lyon - Descriptions of timbre
Goals: *Students play simple classroom instruments.
*Students will accompany the reading of a story with music.
*Classroom instruments (preset in a circle, or handed out in class; suggested instruments: claves/maracas, hand drums, jingle bells, slide whistle, finger cymbals, triangle, cowbell, etc.)
The Friendly Beasts: A Traditional Christmas Carol. New York: Dutton.Chamberlain, S. (1991).
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Sing the words in S-M ending in D (on “me”)
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The Froggy stories are used for singing/pitch matching, playing steady beat, phrase endings are creating sound accompaniment throughout the stories. A simple accompaniment can be added with bordun and phrase endings played on the instruments in C pentatonic.
SNOW, SNOW: the lower instruments are used for steady beat (C and G) and the glockenspiels and soprano metallophone (any pentatonic notes in C) are played on the rests. In "Foggy Gets Dressed", decide with the children what instrument to play for each article of Froggy's clothing. The song reoccurs throughout the story when Froggy goes outside. Mom and Froggy do the pitch matching exercise.
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Illustrated by 11 Caldecott Medal and 4 Caldecott Honor Book Artists Compiled by Amy L. Cohn Scholastic, Inc., 730 Broadway, New York1993 It's a WONDERFUL book...thick (400 pages)...big...$29.95. Divided into chapters: "In the Beginning," "Coming to America," "The Shot Heard Round the World," "Bridging the Gap," "Water, Water Everywhere," "Let My People Go," "I've Been Working on the Railroad," "O Pioneers,", etc. Included with
every chapter are songs, stories and poems. Every music teacher should own one!!!
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CREATING MUSIC FOR STORY (UNIT): http://www.tsmp.org/elementary/turner/turner_thinking_musically_instructions.html
Georgia Music. III. J. Stevenson. New York: Greenwillow.Griffith, H.V. (1986).
Golly Gump Swallowed a Fly..Joanna Cole (similar to the Old Lady)
Good King Wenceslas. New York: Philomel.Wallner, J. (1990)
The Grand Old Duke of York. New York: Whispering Coyote.Roffey, M., & Lodge, B. (1993)
Grandfather Twilight Barbara Berger; use "Clair De La Lune" as background music
Granpa's Song by Tony Johnston
THE GREAT KAPOK TREE We used risers for the tree. The children made masks for the various animals, then stood on the risers with mask on, and held scarves to make the leaves. As each animal was mentioned in the story, that child would step off the risers, and stand by the sleeping man. The best, easiest masks my teachers had their students make were the animal faces painted on cardboard. They then taped a ruler to the backs of the masks, and the children held them in front of their faces. (Mask in one hand, scarf in the other.) This worked much better than trying to fasten the masks to their faces.-- Ruth Denise Lowrie
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THE GREAT KAPOK TREE I did [this book] as part of a fifth-grade program on environmental issues last year. Each class had several of the animals. They choreographed a dance for each animal by practicing typical movements of each one, and then combining them into a form (they did this in PE). In music, we refined the dances and added music that the students composed to go with the choreography. They did a fabulous job, and it was wonderful to watch. I rounded out the program with some environmental songs (Raffi's "Evergreen' is a song for adults that kids love (I don't tell them it's by Raffi and some speech pieces about the environment. Have fun! Denise P.
Second: on Kum wa, Kim wa --- we just sing SM SM and mime picking flowers.
I encourage them to MATCH my pitches.
Third: On "why you so move" I ask it like it's a real question. Cuz the
Gunniwolf is really harmless if you think about it. And I plead on "sing me
that guten sweeten song".
Fourth: On "I no move", I freeze everything but my eyes and say it like I
was really denying it. Kinda funny. They love that part. They never notice
that the southern accent is totally gone.
Fifth: On tiptoeing and running through the jungle, we just patsch very
softly and crescendo and accelerando together. I encourage them to MATCH my
tempo and dynamics.
Sixth: On "hunker cha" - We extend our arms like wolf legs and leap with
them while remaining seated 3 times and while saying hunker cha. It's to
mimic the wolf's motion. We MATCH our movements.
The second time we read through the book on another day most likely, during
the singing of Kum Wa, I become the gunniwolf and fall asleep. They sing it
independently. I encourage them to MATCH each other. They request
this book all year! --- Martha
Stanley
Harvest Song. III. D. Haeffele. New York: Cobblehill Hirschi, R.1991
Have You Seen My Cat? Eric Carle. Only words are: G A E E E G A E E E E G A E E E G A C C C Have you seen my cat? This is not my cat. Where is my cat? This is my cat.
Hickory, Dickory, Dock: The Completed Hickory Dickory Dock by Jim Aylesworth
Hip Cat by Jonathan London, The Banza by Diane Wolkstein
The Hippo Hop by Christine Loomis
How Sweet the Sound by Wade & Cheryl Hudson, Musical
Mosquito, mosquito (r-m-r-m) Don't come weeping (r-m-r-r)
Can't you see that baby's sleeping? (r-m-r-m-r-d-l') (low la=l')
Mosquito, mosquito, (r-d-r-d) don't you cry (r-d-l')
My baby's sleeping right nearby (d-r-d-r-d-r-d-l')
http://www.almasdesigns.com/store/index.cfm/The_Old_Lady_Who_Swallowed_a_Fly_38.htm
but I did not pay $36 for mine. I got mine through a company that brings discounted books, etc. to our school & probably paid $15 or less. The kids were mesmerized by the doll. Later in the class period I used an old book on tape I got from Scholastic
http://www.amazon.com/Know-Old-Lady-Brian-Karas/dp/0590465767/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317420764&sr=1-3
but I also have the recording which the kids LOVE. The guy singing the song makes sounds of the animals, then a "gulping" sound as each one is swallowed (and it gets harder to swallow as the animals get larger) followed by an "ahhh." It's a bit disgusting but the kids think it's a hoot. And because the kids still are loving the song so much, this rotation I'm using Kelly Fothergill's PPT from Tracy's website. And just by chance, we also learned the hand-clapping game "Grandma Grandma sick in bed..." from the website Ellie sent us. I took out the "Down down baby, down by the rollercoaster" & just started at the "Grandma" part. ---- Tina Morgan
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I had a worksheet that had a picture of an old lady's face and the animals in the song.? The face was a side view and?had two pieces--the top section of her face and then her lower jaw.? You used a brad to fasten the two pieces together to make it look like she was opening her mouth.? I used an opaque projector (I am now showing my age) to 'blow up' the face (and animals)?on poster board.? I think the face ended up being about 4 feet tall.? I had a couple of kids in charge of the old lady.? I fastened a 1x2 board to the face.? One of the children held the old lady up using the 1x2 (like a sign) and the other student opened and closed her mouth.? As we sang the song, a student would walk over and put the animal in the old lady's mouth.? ----- Debbie Roe
The kids learn the following ostinato:
Every baby llama always as a mama ti ti ti ti ta ta ti ti ti ti ta ta
It has a papa too! ti ta ti ta ta ta rest rest ta
But I just saw the mama with the baby llama ti ti ti ti ta ta ti ti ti ti ta ta
When I was at the zoo!
ti ta ti ta ta ta rest rest rest
When the rhythm is learned, we add body percussion.
patsch clap patsch clap patsch clap snap snap snap (ta ta ta ta ta ta ti-ti ta)
We then perform the poem with the body percussion accompaniment. Next, we transfer the body percussion parts from the ostinato to unpitched percussion instruments. Encourage the kids to think in terms of high/low. Patschen is a low sound, what percussive low sound would you select (drum perhaps). Clap is a higher sound (tambourine?) snap is the highest (finger cymbals, for example). Now, we do the ostinato with just unpitched instruments.
Introduce the book. The book brings in different animals, but always allows for the ostinato between. Recite the ostinato as a refrain after each character is introduced in the story. Decide how to alternate between body percussion and unpitched percussion.
Read the story and perform the poem with the ostinato at the appropriate times. You may also wish to transfer over the ostinato accompaniments to pitched instruments and try it again. I enjoy this activity as do the kids! Give it a try?
I have the kids sing the original verse (e.g., How much is that doggie in the window), then they sit quietly while I sing the next three pages. After each three pages they sing the original. Then we sing the original again at the end. This way they are engaged throughout. The illustrations are so good and the newly composed lyrics are always cute. Artie
This picture book is appropriate for up to fifth grade. It's based on an
oral account that has been passed down through generations of
African-American communities near the Sea Islands of Georgia & South
Carolina. It is a sort of ghost story that the Gullah people told. The
Gullah were often credited with supernatural powers...
It's Raining, It's Pouring by Kin Eagle (Whispering Coyote Press)
I have the kids sing the original verse (e.g., How much is that doggie in the window), then they sit quietly while I sing the next three pages. After each three pages they sing the original. Then we sing the original again at the end. This way they are engaged throughout. The illustrations are so good and the newly composed lyrics are always cute. Artie
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The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Iza Trapani (W.C. Press)
Jingle Bells. Boston: Joy Street.Kovalski, M. (1988)
A fun one to use at Halloween (even for those who don't "do" Halloween!) is "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything," by Linda Williams. Lots of sound effects with instruments. - Barbara Lee
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JUMP FROG, JUMP 06/05 (for cumulative form and crossover mallet technique)
King Bidgood's in the Bathtub
Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing, James Weldon Johnson, illus. Jan Gilchrist (Scholastic)
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Cute idea! I missed the original posting, so I'm glad I saw yours. Has Nibbles shared the book (MacDonald) with your little ones? My beaver puppet, Bucky, brings it to class early in the kindergarten year when we begin the echo concept. Then he and Cassie the Cow (cow puppet) put on a little comedy routine to demonstrate the singing of echoes.
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01/03 When you read Little Beaver and The Echo, may I suggest that you play Cristofori's Dream, by David Lanz as the background music. You could hear a pin drop when I read it, and some of the kids were very emotional. It even brought tears to a few eyes. So this was a good time to discuss how different kinds of music evoke different emotions. Definitely worth the price of the disk!
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I use this book every year with my primary students (ages 3-4) and it's a great one for echo singing.
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This book reinforces the idea of Echo. It is a good story to read when teaching and practicing this concept.
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01/07 LITTLE BEAVER AND THE ECHO read with background music: David Lanz "Cristofori's Dream." I've used this and have had little kids tell me they felt like crying for Little Beaver!! -- Margo Rainone
-The Little House Christmas Theatre Kit (includes 5 script books
featuring 2 Little House Christmas plays and an illustrated director's guide)
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Activities Based on Research from Laura Ingalls
Wilder Homes and Museums (this is put out by Scholastic)
Laura's Album: A Remembrance Scrapbook of Laura Ingalls Wilder (put out by Scholastic)
-Little House in the Classroom: A Guide to Using the Laura Ingalls Wilder Books -- Amber Stilley, Vocal Music K-12, Mansfield R-IV Schools
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The Little Drummer Boy. New York: Macmillan.Keats, E.J. (1968)
A Little Night Music. New York: Morrow.Micucci, C. (1989)
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The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything (cumulative form, tone color exploration, dramatization) -- Martha in Tallahassee
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I have acted out the story and had the students write a couple of songs with Orff accompaniment. I had a fourth grade perform it for a PTA program. Everyone loved it. I just borrowed a bunch of stuff from my husband, including heavy work boots for the feet. I do it every year with grade 2 or 3. I bring my stuff including a shawl and cane for the little old lady. The kids who aren't being the body parts provide the appropriate instrument sounds so all are busy. I had kids asking for it this week. They are also asking for Skin and Bones so we can act it out. - Contributed by Ardith J. Roddy
Listen to the Rain by Bill Martin (expressive words; great for creating Orff parts)
Lizard's Song George Shannon; Bear can't remember Lizard's song
London Bridge is Falling Down. Boston: Little, Brown.Emberley, E. (1967)
I also have tapes with the books, one side with narration, the other just
the musical score (I prefer narrating it myself). All on REAL instruments,
including the ethnic instruments. These are written by Kathryn Meyrick,
published by Child's Play (International) Ltd., 1990 and 1991. ISBNs are:
0-85953-303-4 and 0-85953-304-2 for the hard covers.
Mama Don't Allow by Thatcher Hurd
Mary Had a Little Lamb by Sarah Josepha Hale
Mary Wore Her Red Dress & Henry Wore His Green Sneakers by Merle Peek
Max by Robert Kraus
Medearis, The Singing Man by Angela Shelf Medearis
Meet Danitra Brown ISBN 0-688-12073-3 Nikki Grimes
Meet the Marching Smithereens by Ann Hayes
Meet the Orchestra by Ann Hayes
As I read the book I allow the children to make the animal sounds. There
are 3 spots in the book where the text is: We speak, I say, I talk
Immediate following those words I have the children say: "Hello, how are you?"
Then I say "...and I sing" and the children sing (in sol-mi) "Hello, how
are you?" They seem to respond well to pitch differentiation.
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01/02 I have also used this book, but as a beginning
classroom management tool. During the first classes
for my K-1 students, we do vocal explorations along
with the book. But I have made one slight change, at
the end of the book where it says "but we speak", I
put in a simple line drawing of myself and changed the
text to "but I speak". I ask the students to identify
the individual in the picture, and of course, they say
it's the teacher. I then remind them of who is in
charge of the class and other behavioral
expectatations. We read the book at the beginning of
class for several weeks, and before you know it, the
students respond without talking when we get to the
picture of the teacher! I have the students'
attention and we can proceed with the lesson without
giving any other quiet signals.
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I simply 'sing' the book and use the appropriate 'voice' with 'whisper,' 'speak,' 'shout' and 'sing.'-- Sandy Toms
Mr. Frog Went A Courting by Gary Chalk
Miska. New York: Frederick Warne.Ambrus V. (1978)
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THE MITTEN Brett I wrote a short pentatonic song, added triangles on the rhyming words
----06/22/02 (I used it with K) It's about a Mole who learns to play the violin. He plays underground and never realizes how his music is being heard by others above the ground. He dreams about how his music could change the world. It's an adorable little story with great pictures. I did this story with the song "I Can Be Anything" from MacMillan's Share the Music Series-Kindergarten.
Moon Song. III. R. Himler. New York: Charles Scribners Sons.Baylor, B. (1982)
06/22/02 It's about a boy, Moses, and his classmates who are deaf. They go to a concert where they hear a percussionist, who is also hearing impaired, perform. At the beginning of the concert, the teacher gives all the students balloons to hold which enables them to feel the vibrations. The percussionist also explains to the students how she plays in her stocking feet so she can feel the orchestra playing. Good book for lower elementary students, but older kids would probably also be able to benefit from the story. Obviously, the story can be read and you can come up with many extensions with students, balloons, etc. The mystery experiment sounds like it would fit right in there.
The next time you read the story, have the students choose non-pitched percussion to accompany the ?Clang Clang? song.
Discuss which instruments would be best suited to the accompaniment. Discuss families of non-pitched percussion. Have
the students tell you which ones are woods, metals, drums and shakes/scrapes. There are other ways to classify instruments
- you can classify them by how they are played. Which instruments are tapped? Which are scraped? which are
shaken?
Use visuals to show the melodic direction: Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump (for pdf copies, email!)
If you have Orff instruments, have some of the students play Thumps from the lowest notes to the highest notes. You
could also use Boomwhackers to play the Thumps using CDEFG or CDE GA or CDEFGABC. (This is also reading practice
for beginning readers.)
Use visuals to show the dynamics when you say, Mortimer, Be Quiet!
Use a beat chart to show the beat when you sing the ?Clang Clang? song.
Assess the learning:
Timbre: Teacher says, ?Mortimer, Be quiet!? Ask: Am I speaking or singing?
Teacher sings, ?Clang, clang, rattle bing bang...) Ask: Am I speaking or singing?
Dynamics: Give the students a dynamics pointing page. Say ?Mortimer, Be quiet!? at a variety of dynamic levels. Have
the students point to the dynamic level they hear. Sing the ?Clang Clang? song at a variety of dynamic levels. Are students
able to perceive the level you are singing? Mark your observations on a checklist.
Assess beat: Give students a beat chart. Sing the ?Clang Clang? song and have them point to the beat. Stop and ask them
which beat they are pointing to? Have them sing the song inside their head while they point to the beat chart. To assess if
they are maintaining a steady beat you can ask questions such as: Which beat did the word bang fall on? (4)
Which beat did the word noise fall on? (6) Which word fell on beat 7? (day)
Which word fell on beat 14? (noise)
Melodic Direction: Sing ?Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump? going up, down, same.
Have the students show the melodic direction with arm motions. Have students close eyes and assess.
Have the students choose the melodic direction from a visual. (project or print visual with arrows)
Singing in tune: Invite children to sing the ?Clang Clang? song individually or in small groups. Assess on your class list
how well they match pitch. Consistently (4), Usually (3), Sometimes (2), Not Yet (1) ----- Denise Gagne, www.musicplay.ca - Musicplay – the Sequential Text
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10/04 MORTIMER - I have a different melody for the refrain in "Mortimer". The kids love to add the instruments. We use the Boomwhackers for going up and down the steps...C,D,E,F, G...and then back down in reverse. We add the clangiest cymbals we can find to the "clang, clang", "rattle, rattle" we use maracas or tambourines, and 2-tone wood block on the "bing-bang". The kids really like it! I also let the kids pick a ticket that says, Mother, Father, Policeman, or has a number (this means that you are one of the brothers or sisters). The tickets also have the words clang, rattle, bing-bang, or the letters C,D,E,F, or G for the Boomwhackers. This means that everyone gets to have some part.They love it!! Cathy Walker
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01/07 MORTIMER by Munch to your list! Great for up/down load/soft AND melodic direction -- Barbara Lee & Gwen Fitzgerald
ta ta ti-ri ti ti c g a a a g
Clang, clang, rattle-bing bang.
ti-ri ti ti ti ti ta (rest)
Gonna make my noise all day.
ta ta ti-ri ti ti
Clang, clang, rattle-bing bang.
ti-ri ti ti ti ti ta (rest)
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My kids really enjoyed the "Mortimer" book by Robert Munsch. Chris Judah Lauder demonstrated doing high and low on the xylophones as people go up and down the stairs. There is a little song Mortimer sings that you can put to a simple melody. The song is rather rebellious. This activity is for younger kids, but my fifth graders enjoyed it because it was different and quite structured. They tried to use two mallets going up and down the stairs quickly.
Music, Music for Everyone by Vera B.Williams
01/07 THE MUSIC TEACHER FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
Musician from the Darkness. III. J. Howe. Boston: Little, Brown.Clement, C. (1989)
My Aunt Came Back by Pat Cummings (Harper Growing Tree)
My Favorite Things, Rogers/Hammerstein, illus. by Janes Warhola (Simon & Schuster)
My Quilt
New Kid on the Block by: Jack Prelutsky
Night in the Country - Rylant
*2.* Teach the children these cues: When the teacher wiggles his/her fingers, the children say and hold the word "no" while patting a tremolo on their laps. When the teacher gives a downbeat, the children say the word "David" and pat their laps one time. Practice these until you aresatisfied.
*3.* Read the book again, this time giving them the cues every time the words "no" and "David" appear in the book. Add variety by changing the length of time they hold "no".
*4.* Transfer to instruments. (I set up the barred instruments in a C pentatonic scale- C,D,E,G,A.) Children play a tremolo and say "no" as the teacher wiggles his/her fingers. Children play one note, hands together, and say the word "David" when the teacher gives the cue. Practice doing these until you are satisfied. *5.* Read the book again, cueing the children to play the words "no" and "David" at your leisure. Sometimes I would do it between pages where it wasn't written in the text. *6.* Rotate instruments and repeat steps 4 and 5. Continue rotating and repeating until you feel like stopping. :) It was a good review of alternate and hands together. The older children could learn tremolo, fermata, accent, quarter note, you name it... It is also good practice in watching and following a conductor. They learn how to "feel" what they are playing so they can look up at the director. This format took about 20-25 minutes.--- Mallory Kroon
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01/03 NOTEWORTHY TALE, THE I used it with 4th grade last year.Every time the scale appeared, we either sang it or played the instruments (glocks, step bells or tone bars). Students really seemed to enjoy it. Reading it in 2 parts seemed to make more sense since there is a lot of material to absorb. They enjoyed the "cliff hanger" effect at the end of the first 1/2.
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01/03 A NOTEWORTHY TALE by Brenda Mutchnick and Ron Casden. It is a real gem!! The story is about Notso Profundo who lives in the town of Rhapsody which is also the home of do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti and The Other Do. The illustrations are delightful. It looks like a great way to introduce the scale to the kids.
I use this song to work on forte/piano with my classes. I have a little stuffed dog that I hide while one student waits in the hall. The class sings the song piano if the person who is "it" is far away and gets louder if they move closer. Sort of like a hot/cold game. We have a great time finding unusual hiding places. A lot of the quieter boys also really get into singing with a louder voice.//
We love Iza Trapani's picture book by the same title. The dog has lots of adventures beyond the usual first verse, and the little ones giggle and point out the impossible situations the doggie gets into, like driving a pickup, wearing cowboy boots, and surfing.Sometimes we've listened for "same" and "different" by adding the other part of the song. As far as I know, it has no words, and I have no idea where the tune came from, but there is one. It works well for free movement or locomotors. It would be a place to use streamers or scarves if you put the song into ABA or rondo form. If you want the tune, let me know, and I'll put it into solfegge.
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(ABC book/ could move, sing or add sounds) actually an alphabet book. It is sung to the tune of "Joshua Fit the Battle Of Jericho." The Old Black Fly's been buzzin' around, buzzin around, buzzin around (...I said shoo fly, shoo, fly shoo!! )'The puppet was obviously a fly, and kids of all ages loved this. I stared with K-2, thinking they would benefit from the alphabet part. One day I got brave and introduced it in a 5th grade who enjoyed it just as much! The puppet was obviously a fly, and kids of all ages loved this. I stared with K-2, thinking they would benefit from the alphabet part. One day I got brave and intoduced it in a 5th grade who enjoyed it just as much!! It is sung to the tune of "Joshua Fit the Battle Of Jericho." FUNNY NOTE: After reading it with one kind. class last week, I asked in a hushed whisper after the next to the last page ("swat"), "What happened to the fly"? One very observant Kindy said, ..."He got caked!"
Shirt: play the "shake, shake" on maracas
Pants: play the "wiggle, wiggle" on bells
Gloves: play the "clap, clap" on cymbals
Hat: play the "nod, nod" on rhythm sticks
Pumpkin Head: play the "boo, boo" on a rachet
You can add an instrument for "knock, knock", too, but I usually don't since
it only happens once.
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I had a class do this one time for a performance. They acted it out
hilariously. At the end they formed a scarecrow facing the audience. The
class made up a theme song which they inserted into the performance. This
is a great story!! I borrow my husband's clothes for props and let the
class choose the best instruments to make the sounds.
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I also did this book at Halloween. My grade
1/2 kids loved it. I added in a guiro, huge hand
drum, boomwhackers, and those goat hoof rattles
(I really love those)to the instruments above.
So not every instrument was used each time. I
let the kids pick what instrument went with each
sound so they had to think about what was
appropriate for each sound ahead of time. I also
don't have an instrument for knock knock. I
usually have the kids click their tongues.
----------------------------------------------------
Over the River and Through the Wood by Iris Van Rynbach
Over the River and Through the Wood. III. C.. Manson, New York: North-South. Child, L.M.
Pages of Music. III. T. dePaola. New York: G.P.Putnamn Sons Johnston, T. (1988)
Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle (use to teach "UP" and "DOWN" with xylophone)
Peter and the Wolf. New York: Morrow.Lemieux, M. (1991)
Peter's Song by Carol P. Saul
The Philharmonic Gets Dressed by Karla Kuskin
Pianna by Mary Lyn Ray
The Pirates of Penzance. III. E. Sorel. New York: Random House.Botsford, W. (1981)
"Play Me a Song: Nine Tales...." (and I can't remember the rest) has stories about instruments from various cultures.
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I've used the Possum book... basically I've started with just reading the book to them, then we talk about the fact that many books have a beat. I ask them if they can "Find the Beat". They pat their laps. Next we read it again with them patting their laps. I usually add a second phrase of "Possum come a knocking at the door" clap, clap, so that I can change the page. Once the students realize that there is room for a "clap, clap" at the end of the phrase then we use rhythm sticks and we simulate the knock at the door. I haven't done anything with other instruments... just haven't gone any further than that. -- Caryn Mears
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My prek's were not always singers, so *participation* was a main goal with them. If I were doing it with 3's or 4's, I'd turn it into a speech game after reading the book and have the children stand in a circle around one "polar bear". (I have a stuffed polar bear toy they could hold, but a laminated picture would work too.) The circle would chant the question line and point at the polar bear. The "bear" would then respond, with teacher's help if necessary, "I see a...........etc." and point at a child in the circle. I have plenty of animals, so each child would have one, but pictures would work too - or the "bear" could name the student instead of an animal. We would continue until ALL had a turn in the center. Having children sit down in the circle after their turn in the center makes it easy for the chooser to know who still needs a turn. -- Connie Herbon
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Article on the song: - http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/247045
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PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON by Peter Yarrow, Lenny Lipton, and Eric Puybaret (with cd) First, we did a movement activity with the instrumental track on the CD that came with the book. I introduced it by talking them through a series of events, asking them what they would do, how it would look: Today you're going to play with your imaginary friend. What do you do when you see your friend walking towards you? Show me what that would look like...Show me what you're going to do when you get to your friend - how are you going to greet him/her? (I also took a few verbal answers - wave, hug, shake hands, etc., but mostly I encouraged them to show me). Now you and your imaginary friend are going to go for a walk through a big grassy field. What will that look like? And so forth, for each stage of the story. In a nutshell: Meet friend - wave from a distance, then up close. Walk with friend through a field Play a game with friend (of their choosing - I got everything from football to jumprope to who knows what. I pantomimed a clapping game during this part) Fly a kite with friend Time to go - walk back through the field (slowly, though, because you want to spend as much time as possible with your friend) Say goodbye to your friend. (at this point I asked them if they would look happy or sad - I acknowledged both responses, happy because they had fun playing with the friend, sad because they had to leave their friend) After we talked through each stage, I played the music and cued them verbally for each step of the story. They were really pretty quiet, much more so than usual, and attentive to the music and the activity, it seemed. Then, I introduced the book - I told them why I was sharing it with them - it was a song that was special to me because my dad used to sing it when I was little. I played the song from the CD and showed the pictures while the song played, and they were completely enthralled, especially the first graders. Afterwards, I went back through the book and talked it over with them - made sure they knew the story, etc. Asked if they though the dragon was an imaginary friend or not. Explained as needed. One of the things I love about that book is that at the end, it's not sad story! I told the children that I always thought the end was so sad, because Jackie Paper leaves and Puff is sad (we talked about why Jackie went away - he grew up.) But in the book, the illustration shows a little girl coming up to play with him at the end, and in the last picture she's playing with Puff and a man is peeking around a corner,watching them - it was my first graders who noticed him, and we decided that it must be Jackie Paper, all grown up, and the girl was his daughter. So sweet!! Then, I pulled out my uke, showed it to them, told them about it and how it was like a guitar, etc, then I taught them the chorus of Puff so they could sing that with me when I got to that part of the song, and I sang it and played the uke for them, and they sang along ("frolicked in the autumn mist is a mouthful for them! Kind of funny to hear them try to get all that out!) and *loved* it. ~Ann in GA
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I have this book. Aside of an historical cool biography and a link to the life of an Black musician--also an American musician, I use the repeated phrase for the kids to repeat each time. Sometimes they use body percussion-patsch for "rap a tap tap" and claps for "think of that." Sometimes we even use one or two unpitched instruments--depending on the level of the class. One instrument timbre for each phrase. Usually wood sounds for the first and either a metal, shaker, tambourine, or drum for the second phrase. GRADE LEVELS: K-3rd -- Pat Boozer
ROUND & ROUND THE SEASONS GO by Rozanne Lanczak Williams, Roseanne Litzinger, ill., LEARN TO READ/READ TO LEARN Science Series, Creative Teaching Press; Good for creative movement
SEALS ON WHEELS A First Book About Colors by Dean Walley, Michele Schutte, ill., Hallmark Children’s Editions Good for singing, echoes, etc.,
Ragtime Tumpie. III. B. Fuchs. Boston: Little, Brown.Schroeder, A. (1989)
Rhythm: Tii-ki, tii-ki (dotted eighth followed by a 16th note) the whole way through until "all day long!" which is ta - ta - ta-a. (quarter, quarter, half note)
Melody: Do do do do, mi re do do, Mi mi mi mi, So fa mi mi, So so so so, Do la so mi, So So low Do!
Orff arrangement:BX: C G C G, C G C' G, C G C G, C G C' rest
(Arpeggiated/crossover bordun)
Word helpers: Ma - gic word I sing all day 'cause ma - gic words mean I can play!
AX: G rest, G rest, G C G C, G rest, G rest, G C G rest
Word helpers: Jun - Jun! Get to work please; Jun - Jun! Get to work!
Ratchet: Plays on the 4th beat of the 4th measure.Word helper: NOW!
B - SX improvise as basic orchestration continues. (BX & AX are in the orchestration.)
The second time:A - sing & play
C - Metallophones improvise as basic orchestration continues.
The third time:A - sing & play
D - Glockenspiels improvise as basic orchestration continues.
The fourth time A - sing & play
E - Either all the unpitched instruments or perhaps 2 groups, such as membranes (hand drums, bongos) and wood improvise as basic orchestration continues.
1. Singing alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
2. Performing on instruments alone, and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments. -- Cak
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(sounds/ Halloween)(This will make sense only if you have the book in front of you.) General points: Class is divided in half. 1/2 play the following parts, 1-3 per instrument. 1/4 class are "cats"; 1/4 are "owls". Activity is done twice so cats and owls can by players and players can switch to vocal sounds. Each instrument begins as I finish reading their page. They all know their "character" and also watch for my cue. They play strongly at first then fade after 10 sec. or so on my cue. Then I begin reading the next page. The drum can re-enter for a few licks at any time if the player chooses.
Characters/instruments in order of entry: Basic beat...." BOOMA-BOOM! (hand drum with beater, student's choice of what to play...just not too regular/metered)
Ghosts.... OOOA-OOO! ("green thing" -long bumpy plastic tube that whistles when swung in the air and changes pitch with speed)
Ghouls ... RAPPA-TAP! (sticks on chair, suggested rhythm in imitation of the rhythm I read on "rappa-tap."
Banshee... EEEA-EEE! (scrape/tap autoharp with hard rubber mallet
Goblins... SHOUSHA-SHAP! (sand blocks)
Witches... AH-HA-HA! (hard scrapes on guiro imitating witches cackle)
Bats....EEEKA-EEK! (finger cymbals)
Cats....MEEA-OOO! (alley cat sounds)
Owls... WHOOPA-WHOO! (owl hoots)
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Cover describes it this way: Clacka-Clack! Booma-Boom! Rappa-Rap! These are the sounds of ghosts and things as banshees sway and witches swing. Spirits in the graveyard rock and bop as the rattlebone rock begins to hop. The whole town joins in all the fun and everyone parties till the morning sun. Come snap and clap - join the syncopation for a best-ever Halloween celebration! I use this in 2nd and again in 3rd. First I just read it through and show the illustrations.
Then I assign one or more students to each page with a particular rhythm instrument, such as castanets on the page where ghosts enter. The rhythms are created by the students and the texture thickens throughout the book until reaching a climax towards the end. Then everything fades away to nothing as daylight comes. I read through a small p.a. system in my stereo to give a little different color to the narration. Musical growth comes through creative use of instruments, following a directors motions, and listening carefully and watching for cues. Instruments used are: hand drum & beater, castanets on a handle, *green thing* you twirl in the air to make howling sound, sticks on chair, autoharp & mallet (sort of like *Banshee*), sandblocks, guiro, maracas, cabasa, claves, jingle sticks, finger cymbals, cat and owl sounds (vocal).
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Good for Speech or Rhythmic EchoesIt
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RATTLEBONE ROCK by Sylvia Andrews - It's a hoot to read this rhythmically - lots and lots of places to add instruments, and the rhythm patterns for each sound are the same, so you can teach the basic pattern, then assign different insts.! Shake Dem Halloween Bones - already mentioned in another email - great book for the kids to sing a repeating response! Dem Bones by Bob Barner - this book goes with the classic song - has great visuals Bonz: iNsiDe- OuT!, by Byron Glaser and Sandra Higashi - this book is full of facts and fiction about BONES - "a rhythm, rhyme and reason bone-anza!" My favorite part is the "Boney Hokey Polka" - for real, folks! - Put your right phalanges in, put your right phalanges out . . . Oh, and "This Old Mandible!" AND, there is a section at the end about the Mexican Holiday Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead,by Linda Lowery - this book is excellent, excellent for explaining this holiday in terms children can easily understand. Can't beat it as a reference book! Monster Math, by Anne Miranda - great rhymes and math facts. Georgie, and Georgie and the Robbers,by Robert Bright - John Feireabend has used these books as great examples for vocal inflection with repeated text. They ar not scarey (Georgie is a friendly ghost), and are back in print once again. Ten Timid Ghosts - this is my new one to use this year. It is a take-away book, with great rhymes and repeating sentences, i.e. "A witch moved in and wanted them out!" -- Barbara Williams
Rockabye Crocodile Jose Aruergo
Roll Over! A Counting Song by Merle Peek
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I have the kids sing the original verse (e.g., How much is that doggie in the window), then they sit quietly while I sing the next three pages. After each three pages they sing the original. Then we sing the original again at the end. This way they are engaged throughout. The illustrations are so good and the newly composed lyrics are always cute. Artie Almeida
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I think I got it from Scholastic in a set with several other books. I know I didn't order it specifically, but when I read it I immediately thought it was perfect for adding instruments.
Silly Sally
I have the kids sing the original verse (e.g., How much is that doggie in the window), then they sit quietly while I sing the next three pages. After each three pages they sing the original. Then we sing the original again at the end. This way they are engaged throughout. The illustrations are so good and the newly composed lyrics are always cute. Artie
Skip to My Lou by Nadine Bernard Westcott
Sleep, Baby, Sleep. New York: Atheneum Oberhansli, T. (1067)
Silver Lake College, 2406 S. Alverno Road, Manitowoc, WI 54220
The catalog has a wealth of material for preschool and
lower elementary children.
So-me goes Missing
So-me meets the Boss
So-me O and Romeo
So-me and the Spider
Song & Dance Man by Karen Ackerman
A Song for Little Toad by Vivian French
Song of the Chirimia. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda.Volker, J.A. (1991)
The Star Spangled Banner illus. by Peter Spier
BATTLESHIP GAME: http://www.quia.com/ba/228579.html
Take Me Out to the Ballgame by Maryann Kovalski
Take Me Out to the Ballgame by Jack Norworth
"Take me out......" GREAT book published by Alladin Paperbacks (Simon & Schuster) tells all about the song and the original stadium.
The Teddy Bear's Picnic by Jimmy Kennedy
There Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight. Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott.Quackenbush, R. (1974)
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by Gene Baer, Lois Ehlert, ill., Harper Collins (A Charlotte Zolotow Book) Good for Speech or Rhythmic Echoes
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01/07 THUMP, THUMP, RAT-A-TAT TAT by Gene Baer is not only rhythmic, it is also great for illustrating dynamics, crescendo and decrescendo. The band gets closer and closer, louder and louder, then quieter as it moves off into the distance. My headmaster was impressed watching a bunch of first graders "illustrate" this book with sound one time. - Barbara Lee
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TIKKI TIKKI TEMBO My favorite book to dramatize/use instruments with is "Tikki Tikki
Tembo." I saw Rene Boyer-Alexander do this at our annual convention here in
Minnesota several years ago and just LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I use it
Primarily with third or fourth graders. Some things we do with it:
Intro/conclude it with a song of Chinese Origin, usually with Orff
instruments accompanying.
Tikki Tikki's name is great to do on rhythm instruments:
Tikki Tikki Tembo (ti-ti ti-ti ta ta) on wood block
No Sa Rembo (ta ta ta ta) on tambourine
Chari Bari Ruch (ti-ti ti-ti ta ta) on maracas
Pip Peri Pembo (ta ti-ti ta ta) on hand drum
Falling in the well: rapid descending scale on a BX with a cymbal crash
At the end
Running: hand drums
Old man with the ladder: Slow ascending scale on a Soprano Gloc or SX
Mother washing clothes in the river: guiro --- Rene Boyer-Alexander viaDana McCabe
Monday - clap hands - clap on the words "string beans"
- Tuesday - swing hips - rotate hips in a circle for "spaghetti" (lots of
giggles)
- Wednesday - touch toes - touch toes once then stand back up for "soup"
(zoo-oop)
- Thursday - slap thighs - slap thighs on "roast beef"
- Friday - shrug shoulders - one shoulder then the other on "fresh fish"
- Saturday - march - stomp on words "chicken"
- Sunday - wave hands - hands overhead on "ice cream"
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TOO MUCH NOISE by Ann McGovern set the repeated phrase to music add sound effects for the leaves on the roof, teakettle, etc. -- Martha Stanley
Out in back (ti ti ta); Railroad track (ti ti ta)
Clickety-clack (tiri ti ta); Clickety-clack (tiri ti ta)
We learn this in its natural spoken rhythm as notated above.
Once learned, add patsch (ta) patsch(ta) patsch(ta) snap(ta), patsch(ta) patsch(ta) patsch(ta) snap(ta).
Now clap vocal ostinato rhythm only.
Now one group does patsch patsch patsch snap rhythm and the other claps the vocal ostinato rhythm. Switch groups. Pick instruments that sound train-like. (Sand blocks, guiro, cabasa maybe) These instruments now take over vocal ostinato rhythm. Play this with the patsch patsch patsch snap rhythm. Now find instruments that would work on the snap. (this becomes the train's bell - therefore, finger cymbals, cowbell, resonator bells, etc.) I usually leave out the patschen and do rest, rest, rest, ding! But, if that is confusing, they could leave the patschen in. Explain that between each page of text the ostinato will be played or spoken. Set up an order for this. I usually do spoken and played together to start with. Then just spoken. Then just played. I alternate these and end with spoken and played together for the finale. Begin and end the story with the train whistle if you have one as follows:
Train whistle Spoken and played ostinato
Next page: locomotives cars in tow etc. Played ostinato
Next page: Steel wheels rolling, etc. Spoken ostinato
Next page: engineers with striped hats
You get the picture. IMPORTANT: speak the text of the book as rhythmically and quickly as possible to sound like the rhythm of
the train. The text when spoken in such a way really sounds like a train - therefore "Train Song". I would like to blow up the pics in a chart format, so I could just flip the pics during the ostinato interlude, but have yet to do this! After the story, I show them the pictures. It breaks the rhythm of the book to stop in between to show the pictures. It would be ideal for there to be enough books that 2 or 3 of them could share a book among themselves! Of course, playing an instrument and turning pages would be difficult, but one could play and one could turn. Also, I vary the timbre of the reading and make modulations in the tempi. For example, "slowing 'neath the overpass" I slow down my tempo slightly but pick it up right away. There are a couple lines that need rhythmic reworking when reading them out loud.
The illustrations by Sheila White Samton could easily be replicated and enlarged by children for a stage presentation. Orff teachers could extend this one to include group-created music/movement/dramatization.
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The Tree in the Ancient Forest ISBN 1-883220-31-9 Carol Reed Jones
The Tree in the Wood. New York: North-South.Manson, C. (1993)
The Troll Music. New York: Harper & Row.Lobel, A. (1966)
Turkey in the Straw by Barbara Shook Hazen, John Henry by Julius Lester
The Twelve Days of Christmas, illustrated by Jan Brett (Trumpet Club)
The Twelve Days of Christmas. New York: Macmillan.Knight, H. (1981)
The Twelve Days of Christmas. New York: Franklin Watts.Wildsmith, B. (1972)
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star by Iza Trapani
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. III. J. Noonan. New York: Scholastic.Taylor, J. (1992)
"Moon has a meadow, green and wide, a great green meadow on the other side
for cows on the munch, cows by the bunch, ever so many eating their lunch,
cows in the craters, cows and their cousins,
cows on vacation, dozens and dozens."
That's just one page of this delightful book.
Read the story to the children. Each time you come to the words, Up, up, up, up, up ... fall down have the children say the words with you, usin=
g higher pitches as they go up, and descending pitches when they say, fall down. When the parents tell the girl to Be careful! have the children say this with you as well, using mother and father voices. On a set of step bells, or other barred instrument, play Up, up, up, up, up on the step bells as the children say it. When they say, fall down, play a descending pattern or a descending glissando.
Use this opportunity to show where the higher and lower pitches are on your=
barred instruments. Show the children the big bars, and play the notes. As=
k them if the sounds are higher or lower. Then, show the children the littl=
e bars and play the notes. Ask them if these sounds are higher or lower. Sh=
ow the children how to play Up, up, up, up, up and fall down on the barred instrument. Invite the children to play this part in the story. Each time someone falls down, they cry, "Ow, ouch! Ow ouch! Ow ouch!" Have the children choose instruments and play these sounds. When Anna gets the band-aids for her parents they make scritch sounds and wrap sounds. Discuss which instruments might sound best for these words and choose instruments to play these sounds, as well.
There are also many opportunities to use choral speaking or singing in the story. Each time Anna falls, her parents tell here to Be careful. Don't climb.Invite the class to say these parts in chorus. When Anna gets to the top of the tree she yells, "I'm the king of the castle, Mommy's a dirty rascal!" Have the class sing this part.
The story lends itself to dramatization. Invite children to play the parts of Anna, Mommy and Daddy and dramatize the story with expressive speaking and instrumental sound effects.---- Denise Gagne, [email protected]
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First I taught them the tunes and motions and the conducting cues:
--- up up up up up up...... pentatonic scale, with hands climbing upward.
---fall down...... wave your hands high with a high voice saying "faaaaaalll" and then glissando down rapidly and pat your legs all at once on the word "down"
---- ow OUCH ow OUCH ow .... uses a middle, high, middle, low, middle voice pattern along with clap, hold head, clap, hold bottom, clap.
--- then with alternating hands (broken bordun), we pat 4 times and then sing "Be careful, don't climb" (sm sm 8threst r d) twice.
--- when Anna climbs up the huge, tall tree, we say "treeeeeee" in a low voice moving to a high voice moving even higher. I trace the tree from bottom to top pretty slowly so that it forces them to use a large vocal range. The sound really assists the understanding that it was a BIG tree.
---- with both hands patting together (bordun), we pat 4 times and sing in the SMLSM childhood chant "I'm the king of the castle. Mama's a dirty rascal." Oh, the grins this brings!
----- Anna refuses to climb down from the tree and says "no no no no no!" We do it like this: get some attitude, girl, cuz we get our pointer finger up, wave it back and forth with each no and then snap at the end in a kind of throwaway motion. I know you've seen people do this, mostly women. We do it twice. It's sooo funny. The tune is just SFMRD snap.
----- the kids create their own vocal sounds for when mom is going "waaaaah" and for when dad is going "ow."
---- when the parents come out looking for Anna, they say her name 4 times. We do it in a crescendo, pp to f. I won't let them shout, but we can sure get loud!
The rest of the book sounds are just spoken or are so self-evident that I don't need to add anything else.
Now that they have that down, we'll transfer it to instruments.
The up up up fall down I do on melody bells. They used the black keys and play the first 6, starting with the lowest one. Falllllll.... they wait for the voices, not playing, and Down, they play a glissando from the highest to lowest bars.
The ow Ouch ow Ouch ow section - I set out a bunch of non-pitched instruments and let them choose which ones would be best for the sound effect and also for the pitch appropriateness. So we end up with 3 timbres.
I use the boomwhackers (C and G, although I may change to E and B to raise the vocal range) for the patting instruments. Play the boomies 4 times before singing the little song. Put a single gentle "boom" at the end of the part for finality.
For 'no no no no no' - I ask them to pick an instrument that sounds best for the snap. They tend to pick the wood block which I tend to like too. --- Martha Stanley
Lesson 1 First reading: children sing the song each time. Separate from the book, we do some teacher-led mirroring, exploring different levels directions (side to side) in preparation for them to be the spider spinning her web.
Lesson 2 Re-read story with song. Remember movement training from lesson 1. Read story again, everyone gets to be the spider with movement.
Lesson 3 Review walk; jog; skip/gallop from previous lessons, movement training. Read book with everyone getting to be the various animals. Instrument circle: I collected several guiros from my 2 schools and they all had a chance to learn the playing technique for the guiro.
Lesson 4 Students say “scrape it now” in rhythm with the teacher-played BX part. Instrument circle again: add guiro part to song. Students rotate and all get a turn.
Lesson 5 They decide whether to be guiro player, spider, or one of the animals. Everyone does something…have more spiders or animals if you need to. Perform the whole story. Great for an informances! -- Martha Evans Osborne
Walking through the Jungle...Julie Lacome (Movement/sound effects)
I am planning to use the book Water Dance by Thomas Locker for my 6th
grade program this year. I will be doing it in Rondo form with a "flowing water" piece as the A section. I am trying to decide what to do on each phase of the water cycle for each new poem.--- Lindsey Cayer
After the intial reading and introducing all of the animals - ocelot, kinkajou, parrot, sloth, gecko, tree frog, boa, bat, butterfly, the students were divided into groups.
Group 1: Instrument Sound effects -- I used clipart pictures of the 9 animals and the moon to make cards. An instrument sound was assigned to each animal and as they were mentioned in the story, the group behind that card played.
Group 2: Actors
I have a huge supply of stuffed animals and puppets and I happened to have everything except an ocelot, but I improvised with another cat. I took a brown easel and draped it with green scarves to create our tree. As each animal was mentioned in the story, the student with that character peeked above the top of the tree.
For 2nd/3rds, we added Group 3: Barred instruments (I just used 17-note bell sets for this because I have 25 sets. That way in my double classes, I could have one group playing the sound effects in the back, the actors down one side of the room, and the bell sets in the front. There are over 40 kids in the doubles.) On each page turn another animal is introduced and then he climbs away. After each "Climb away," the bells would play an upward scale. Sometimes, we sang the title, "Way up high in a tall green tree" as we played. At the end of the book, she climbs down the tree and we played "Down, down down from a tall green tree."
The author has another book, "Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea" that I've already ordered it to do a follow up lesson. Here's the address to part of the Tree Book. http://janpeck.com/twomorepagesofwuhigh.html It's definitely a keeper! ---- Lee in GA
We Wish You a Merry Christmas: A Traditional Christmas Carol. New York: E.P. Dutton.Pearson, T.C. (1983)
07/05 WHAT CHARLIE HEARD Book: by Mordicai Gerstein [“Profiling American composer Charles Ives, Gerstein (The Wild Boy) plies an artistic style as densely and consciously layered as one of Ives's compositions. The illustrations provide an instant visual connection to the music, which attempts to encompass the sounds of everyday life”] (Amazon.com)
Wheels on the Bus. III. S.K. Wickstrom. New York: Crown.Raffi. (1990)
The Wheels on the Bus. New York: Dutton.Zelinsky, P. O. (1990).
When Bluebell Sang. New York: Bradbury.Ernst, L.C. (1989).
When the Rain Came to Kapiti Plain . .
---
03/03 Where The Wild Things Are Here's what I use, I have modified it a bit:
Forest: sticks (crescendo as the forest grows); Boat: triangles;
Roars: tambourines, shaken (you know, big drums would work for this, too!
Teeth: Jingle taps; Eyes: tone blocks; Claws: maracas
---
I have a video at school of Where the Wild Things Are. I've never used it.
It is from Glyndebourne Productions Limited. The number on the video is
1-800-262-8600. Its performed by the Glynedbourn Festival Opera.
Who is Taooubg at My Window? by A.G. Deming (Puffin Unicorn)
Willie was Different Norman Rockwell A great story just to read. About a little bird that was different than the other birds because of his singing voice
Wing-A-Ding III. S. Gammell. Boston: Little, Brown.Hoopes, L.L. (1990)
Wolf Plays Alone. New York: Philomel.Catalona, D. (1992)
Wombat Stew by Marcia K.Vaughn, Mortimer by Robert Munsch
Wood-Hoopoe Willie by Virginia Kroll
Worms Wiggle..David Pelham/Michael Foreman (Pop-up/good for little people moving)
Yankee Doodle by Gary Chalk, Yankee Doodle by Dr. Richard Shackburg(Cartoon mice depict Revo. War)
Yellow Submarine by Lennon and McCartney, illus. by Cathy Holly (Hal Leonard)
The Teddy Bears' Picnic, (book/tape)
You're Driving Me Dithers Bonnie McSmithersby, Sue Ann Alderson, Annick Press, Toronto. It has a great repeated refrain that Bonnie's mother says and instrument sounds can be added to the story
Zebra-Riding Cowboy: A Folk Song From the Old West by Angela Shelf
-------
ZIN, ZIN, ZIN A VIOLIN We talked about instrument families. Then I used the DSO listening site, which I projected on my whiteboard, to show the instruments and play their sounds. We finished with some coloring sheets that featured the instruments from the story. While they colored, I played a CD from Classics for Kids. It was very simple and low stress for me, but they really liked it. We don't do much, if any, coloring in my class, so they thought it was great. ---- Monica Gelinas
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CHAPTER BOOKS
"THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN" by E. B. White as part of their curriculum. One theme in the book is how music, the trumpet, literally gave a voice to a mute trumpeter swan. In the book are 5 or 6 actual notated tunes. My third graders get excited because they have begun to read notation (BAGE with recorders). There are many other references to music in the book: reveille and taps, solfege, camp songs, old popular songs, classical composers, etc. The swan's name is Louis and direct reference is made to his name and that of the famous Louis Armstrong, so that opens up another line of discussion. When it is taught to the third graders, we spend a music class reading and discussing the various musical references, and how music "is a language anybody can understand," to quote a line from the book. There are lots of other themes that can be discussed in the book, too, so it's an excellent book to share with students. --- Barbara Lee BACK to Literature and Music topics
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BIG(GIANT) BOOKS
05/21 The picture book of "What a Wonderful World" is good. I also have "On the DAy You Were Born. I also have a cute book called the "Little Puppy Rap" It's one of those countdown things.
An Austrian Went Yodeling
Bo-Wo-Wones
I've Been Working on the Railroad
Gary the GhostBACK to Literature and Music topics
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CHRISTMAS BOOKS
01/03 ON CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE MORNING "There was a pig went out to dig, on Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, John suggests acting it out... let the children dress up in costumes or put on animal masks. He explains that the farmers hundreds of years ago celebrated planting time with songs and dances. They believed that dancing and singing would help push the plants up out of the earth so they danced and sang as energetically as they could. Other verses include cow, sheep, crow, etc.,
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THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS by Jan Brett...after singing, or before, share this book. Her illustrations are FABULOUS! She has more than one story
going on...she almost always draws a border around the main story with a sub-story going on in the illustrations!
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"12 Days of Christmas" is by that title..a pop-up celebration by Robert Sabuda. GREAT book! I plan to use it before I go over it with the 1st graders this year. However, only my hands will be handling it as the pop-ups are all done in white.BACK to Literature and Music topics
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TOP 40 OR SO!
A-Hunting We Will Go Kellog, Steven 0-688-14944-8
A YOU'RE ADORABLE, Alexander (use in K along with various alphabet songs and activities)
Abiyoyo Seeger, Pete 0-689-71810-1
Acho! bang! Crash!... (Lower El.)
Amazing Pop-up Music Book
Baby Beluga
The Ballad of St. Valentine Jackson, Alison 0525467203 This is cleverly set to "Clementine."
BARNYARD DANCE, Boynton (use in K/1st with a song called "Country Dance" or simple square-dance type movements)
BEAR SNORES ON, Wilson/Chapman (see MK8 Idea Bank under Picture Books)
My kids really grasped the ascending/descending concept better when we played xylophones while I read Caps for Sale
Celie and the Harvest Fiddler Flournoy, Vanessa and Valerie 0-688-11458-X
Charlie Parker Played Be Bop - Chris Raschka
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Archambault, John 068983568X
Chicken Soup with Rice Sendak, Maurice 0-590-02954-1
Cows in the Kitchen by June Crebbin (Lower El.)
Dr. Seuss' The Foot Book, Green Eggs and Ham
Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors (if I can read it without crying!)
Don't Worry Be Happy McFerrin, Bobby 0-941807-51-7
Five Little Speckled Frogs ill. Thatcher, Fran 1-57755-209-1
Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter (Upper El.)
Goldilocks and the Three Bears - Jan Brett
Going On A Bear Hunt Rosen, Michael 0-689-50476-4
Handel Who Knew What He Liked Anderson, M.T. 0-7636-1046-1
THE HANDMADE ALPHABET, Rankin (use when teaching/reviewing manual alphabet)
Happy Birthday, Moon for teaching about echo singing
I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie Jackson, Alison 0-14-056595-7 This is one of my all-time favorites. I had my older kids rewrite
ISLAND IN THE SUN, Ayliffe/Belafonte (use song with Latin percussion)
IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING, Eagle (and other books by Eagle)
ITSY BITSY SPIDER, Trapani (and other books by Trapani) **
The Jazz Fly. Great book with cd.
LADYBUG, LADYBUG, Brown (use with insect songs)
Low-Down Laundry Line Blues, The Millen, C.M. 0-395-87497-1
Listen to the Storyteller Marsalis, Wynton 0-670-88054-X
LITTLE BEAVER AND THE ECHO, MacDonald (use to introduce the term "echo" in K)
The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything
Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times (and What the Neighbors Thought) Krull, Kathleen 0-15-21436-7 (Great for little know facts - entertaining)
Lost Music, The ill. Meyrick, Kathryn 0-85953-304-2
The Mitten - Jan Brett ** (see “Mitten Game” in file: “Games” to accompany
Mop's Backyard Concert Schapp, Martine 1-57768-892-9
MOSES GOES TO A CONCERT, Millman (science of sound, vibrations)
Music Teacher from the Black Lagoon, The Thaler, Mike 0-439-18873-3
My Country 'Tis Of Thee 0-439-39195-4
My Dolly Seeger, Pete 0-7636-0770-3
MY FAMILY PLAYS MUSIC by Judy Cox and Elbrite Brown. It won a Coretta Scott King award and is available from Amazon. Girl plays along using rhythm instruments with different members of her family who each play in different genres (styles); the cut illustrations are colorful
My Friend the Piano Cowan, Catherine 0-688-13239-1
The Noisy Alphabet by Ross Mac Donald (Lower El.)
Nutcracker, The ill. Sendack, Maurice 0-517-58659-2
The Nutcracker based on the original by Hoffman
Old Black Fly
Our Marching Band Moss, Lloyd 0-399-23335-0
Paper Crane, The Bang, Molly 0-688-04108-6
Peanut Butter and Jelly illustrated Nadine Bernard Westcott (Lower El.)
Peter and the Wolf ill. Mikolaycak, Charles 0-14-050633-0
The Petty, Kate & Jennie Maizels 0-525-46160-4
RATTLEBONE ROCK, Andrews (Halloween sound-exploration activity-see larger listing in this file)
Remarkable Farkle McBride, The Lithgow, John 0-689-83340-7
The Shape Book
Swan Lake ill. Lisabeth Zwerger 0-7358-1702-2 This book has beautiful illustrations. It's upper elementary, but at the top of the page, it has the notation for the melodic excerpt that goes with each part of the story.
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Trout by Teri Sloat (Lower El.)
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, Jacobsen (Guthrie) **
Today I Feel Silly & Other Moods That Make My Day Curtis, Jamie Lee 0-06-024560-3
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
What a Wonderful World by Weiss and Thiele (Lower El.)
What's That Noise? Carman, William 0-375-81052-8 The pictures in this book are really neat, and its a neat way to introduce the idea of trying to deduce objects from their sounds.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING? TO SEE MY FRIEND, Carle (see MK8 Idea Bank under Picture Books)
Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar by Bonnie Lass and Philemon Surgess (Lower El.)
Yankee Doodle by Gary Chalk...a Revolutionary Tail (Upper El.)
Zin! Zin! A Violin! Moss, Lloyd 0671882392
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BOOKS about Instruments
I Like the Music by Leah Komaiko -a young girl doesn't want to go to the symphony concert with her grandma
What Instrument Is This? by Rosmarie Hausherr -a description and picture of many orchestral instruments with history and children playing the instruments
Georgia Music by Helen Griffith -about a girl who learns to love music from her grandpa who plays the harmonica
Meet the Orchestra by Ann Hayes -introduces all families of the orchestra and individual instruments as well
Berlioz the Bear by Jan Brett -about a troupe of animals that play different instruments and must get to the concert on time but are delayed by wagon trouble
Mama Don't Allow by Thatcher Hurd
The Remarkable Farkle McBride by John Lithgow about a boy who want to play music but is unhappy with every instrument he tries until he becomes the conductor....
The Philharmonic Gets Dressed by Karla KuskinBACK to Literature and Music topics
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BOOKS with Song Texts
A-Hunting We Will Go, Oh, by John Langstaff
America The Beautiful by Katharine Lee Bates
Baby Beluga, Raffi, illus. by Ashley Wolff
Both Sides Now, Joni Mitchell, illus. Alan Baker (Bryron Preiss)
Call Down the Moon: Poems of Music by Myra Cohn Livingston
Cat Goes Fiddle-I-Fee by Paul Galdone
Dem Bones by Bob Barner (Scholastic)
The Erie Canal, illus. by Peter Spier (Zephyr Books); The Amazing Impossible
Erie Canal by Cheryl Harness
Fiddle-I-Fee by Jakki Wood; Fiddle-I-Fee by Melissa Sweet
Five Little Pumpkins by Iris Van Rynbach
Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter
The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, illustrated by Peter Spier (Dell)
The Friendly Beasts, illustrated by Tomie dePaola (Scholastic)
FROG IN THE KITCHEN SINK To the chorus of "Skip to My Lou" by Jim Post. - Julie Long
Frog Went A-Courting , illus. by Wendy Watson
Frog Went A-Courtin' by John Langstaff
The Grand Old Duke of York
Huron Carol, The beautiful book, illustrated by Frances Tyrrell Dutton Children's Books, NYISBN 0-525-44909-4
Hush by Mingfong Ho a Thai story, great pictures, easy to add instruments for animals, and use with a lullabye
HUSH LITTLE ALIEN - (I think I got it from Scholastic) that you sing to "Hush, Little Baby." -- Carole Clark
Hush Little Baby Stuart Manins
Island in the Sun Harry Belafonte, Lord Burgess
It's Raining, It's Pouring by Kin Eagle (Whispering Coyote Press)
The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Iza Trapani (W.C. Press)
In a Cabin, In a Wood by Darcie McNally
OLD BLACK FLY & Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho
"Old Black Fly" also works with "Skip to my Lou" -- Cheryl Elder
Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Michael Rosen
Mary Wore Her Red Dress & Henry Wore His Green Sneakers by Merle Peek
Mr. Frog Went A Courting by Gary Chalk
My Aunt Came Back by Pat Cummings (Harper Growing Tree)
My Favorite Things, Rogers/Hammerstein, illus. by Janes Warhola (Simon & Schuster)
Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone? by Iza Trapani (W.C. Press)
Over in the Meadow by John Langstaff
Over the River and Through the Wood by Iris Van Rynbach
Roll Over! A Counting Song by Merle Peek
Row, Row, Row Your Boat by Robin Muller
Skip to My Lou by Nadine Bernard Westcott
The Star Spangled Banner illus. by Peter Spier
There's a Hole in the Bucket by Nadine Bernard Westcott
Take Me Out to the Ballgame by Maryann Kovalski, Take Me Out to the Ballgame by Jack Norworth
The Teddy Bear's Picnic by Jimmy Kennedy
This Land is Your Land - Jakobsen
Turkey in the Straw by Barbara Shook Hazen, John Henry by Julius Lester
The Twelve Days of Christmas, illustrated by Jan Brett (Trumpet Club)
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star by Iza Trapani
What A Wonderful World by George David Weiss & Bob Thiele
The Wheels on the Bus by Paul Zelinsky; The Wheels on the Bus by Maryann Kovalski
Yankee Doodle by Gary Chalk, Yankee Doodle by Dr. Richard Shackburg(Cartoon mice depict Revo. War)
Yellow Submarine by Lennon and McCartney, illus. by Cathy Holly (Hal Leonard)
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BOOKS with Accompaniment Music
ARTURO’S BATON by Syd Hoff with Eine Kleine Nacht Musik by W.A. Mozart
......(Also in Suite are Sunset, On the Trail, Painted Desert, Cloudburst, Crickets & Distant Thunder)(from the Grand Canyon Suite)BACK to Literature and Music topics
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BOOKS WITH REPEATED TEXT
Mary Ann Hoberman's "And to think that we thought that we'd never be friends" Nancy Reycraft
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"Shake dem Halloween Bones"
“Rap a Tap Tap” and it's by Leo & Diane Dillon. This is a neat book for repetitive phrase, and also Black history emphasis. It's about Bill Robinson, a great American tap dancer. The book has biographical info. on him on the last page of the book. - Pat Boozer
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In time for Halloween: Frank was a Monster who wanted to Dance by Keith Graves.
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BEIN’ WITH YOU THIS WAY W. Nickola-Lisa, Lee and Low Books Inc., 1994
FIVE LITTLE MONKEYS SITTING IN A TREE, Eileen Christelow, Clarion Books, 1991
GO AWAY BIG GREEN MONSTER Ed Emberley, Scholastic Inc., 1997
GOODNIGHT OWL
JUMP FROG JUMP Robert Kalan, Scholastic Inc., 1981
MORTIMER The kids LOVE that book! about high and low pitches (size/pitch relationship; high end and low end of the barred instruments) and up and down on the barred instruments, plus we sing the "klang klang rattle..." part. First and second graders did it for informances last year. The kids love jumping in and saying the "Mortimer, be quiet!" parts. I do have a problem with the part near the beginning that says his mother "threw him into bed," or something like that. I change the words when I read it to the kids. -- Marth Evans Osborne
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POSSUM COMES A-KNOCKIN’
RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW Mary Ann Hoberman, Mondo Publishing, 2002
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE DINOSAUR STOMP
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iDEAS FOR INTEGRATION
07/11 GRAMMAR SONG
Sung to the tune of Fare thee well:
It's a noun, It's a noun,
It's the name of a person, place or thing. (Repeat)
Sung to the tune Are you sleeping?:
Verbs show action. Verbs show action.
I like verbs. I like verbs.
Verbs show what we're doing.
They give us lots of action.
I like verbs. = I like verbs.
Sung to the tune BINGO:
I know a punctuation mark that's used to show excitement.
Ex-cla-ma-tion point!
Ex-cla-ma-tion point!
Ex-cla-ma-tion point!
It's used to show excitement! (Placing hands on face like "Home Alone"!) ---- Caryn Mears, Kennewick, WA
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06/09 MATERIALS for language through music: http://www.singlish.com/
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"Music Moments to Teach Academics" It has a section on dance. Her website is Tree Frog Productions.
MUSIC & MOVEMENT CD'S, BOOKS: http://www.treefrogpro.com/resource/resrcfrm.htm (scroll down)
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06/09 CREATIVE WRITING IN MUSIC CLASS: I love to write and I want my kids to love to write too. We write in the Music Room at an average of twice a year. With my seconds and thirds, the children read their writings during the holiday concert. My seconds' concert is right before Thanksgiving so their theme is usually "I am Thankful". I get permission from Jay Ungar and Molly Mason to use their piece, "Thanksgiving Hymn" to play as the children read. It is incredibly powerful and wrenching at the same time to hear the music and hear their words.... The thirds write about "My Wish for the New Year". I usually pick about 8 - 10 children to read in each grade level. In addition to this, we write in February in preparation for March - Music in our Schools Month. Grades 2 - 5 write about Music. I purposely leave a specific title out and tell them that they can write a poem, an essay a story (perhaps a fairy tale?) as long as it has to do with music. I try not to be too specific because otherwise they will do just what I suggested. :) Setting the mood is so important as we all know! They have their paper and pencil on a clipboard and they find a spot in the room where they are comfortable and not near someone who will distract them. They build their "imaginary box" around themselves and then they settle in. I put some quiet, peaceful music on and tell them to give themselves a few minutes to relax. They stretch out on the floor with their eyes closed. As soon as they get that "great idea", they should start writing. I make a big deal about getting that "great idea" down on to paper FIRST and then, after they have said what they want to say, THEN they can go back and edit, change, fix whatever. This is very hard for some. They immediately want to fix any spelling errors, messiness etc. To get them to get past that and just focus on getting the "great idea" down on to paper, is huge. I encourage them to let the spelling go, let the messiness stay for a bit and get their "great idea" down on to paper. I tell them that yes, spelling is important and having a neat paper is important too, but what is more important is getting that "great idea" down first. I "really believe that you all have something wonderful to write about. If I didn't think that, then we wouldn't be doing this in Music class." THAT they get! I want the music room to be a safe place for them to write without stress or pressure. I want them to BELIEVE that THEY have something wonderful to say in their writing and to write with confidence and assurance. My fifth graders, whom I have had for four years, really get it and I have to say, write beautifully. I tell them that they are not getting a grade on this - and (I find this so powerful) - you can actually SEE the stress, the tension leave them. They literally sigh a breath of relief! (That says a lot I think about the culture of testing don't you think!). I use two class periods for this and they hand me their rough draft (sloppy copy). I pick the best and type them up and put them into a collection which I give a name to. Last year, the title of the anthology was "Hemidemisemiquavers"! :) At the beginning of the Anthology, on the inside cover, I state my objectives for this project. Each child who has writing in the collection, brings one home. Each faculty member gets one as does the Superintendent, Board members etc. One more thing - when we are talking about what they are going to write, I suggest to them the notion that maybe they have always wanted to write a poem, or a fairy tale but were afraid that they would get a bad mark etc. Well this is a great place to experiment, to try something new without worrying about a grade. They like that!
I am still working on this whole area of my teaching and fine tuning things. I took a "Reading and Writing" course which focused mostly on writing and it changed my life as a teacher. I think it is worth every moment of my time to do this and most rewarding is the fact that the kids seem to actually enjoy doing this ! Yesssss! ---- Kathleen Bragle
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BOOKS for Upper Elementary
America The Beautiful by Katharine Lee Bates
This picture book is appropriate for up to fifth grade. It's based on an
oral account that has been passed down through generations of
African-American communities near the Sea Islands of Georgia & South
Carolina. It is a sort of ghost story that the Gullah people told. The
Gullah were often credited with supernatural powers...
I used the book for a music/art lesson. Without showing the kids the book,
I played the first two minutes of "Misterioso". First, we made a list of
the instruments they heard. Then, after listening again, I had my students
create a picture about what they heard. I let them draw whatever they
wanted to as long as they could explain how it related to what they heard.
This was extremely interesting for me--I'm a new teacher and I was amazed at
what my students came up with!!BACK to Literature and Music topics
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PLAYS, SCRIPTS
READER’S THEATRE I got turned on to [this] many years ago when I saw the play Lion In Winter done in RT and was completely bowled over at how well RT can work. I've done it with kids a couple of time pre-Orff and we all liked it. Here is a great site for information and FREE RT plays for upper elementary and middle school Many of the plays are folk stories from other cultures. I found one that would be GREAT to do [with an ocean theme]. It has direct connections to opera and music and it's a good story.
The site is http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/RTE.html
The specific story that is just so right for me is #14 - The Sea King's Daughter, a Russian folktale which was the basis for the Rimsky-Korsakov’ s opera, Sadko. The site says: "PREVIEW: A poor musician is invited to play in the Sea King’s palace, where he’s offered more than riches." Oh my - storms, dances, wind, love, instruments. ....... all available in the story to weave music and movement into. --- Martha Stanley
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ENHANCING READING
06/07
1. Read/Sing picture books with a known song text.
2. Sing the text of a book that is not based on a song.
3. Use instruments (or found sounds) to create sound effects for a story.
4. Add instruments for each different character/event of a cumulative story.
5. Use recorded music as a “sound track” for a story.
6. Choose a simple song (nursery rhymes or other children’s songs) to represent the characters/events of a story.
7. Compose you own simple song based on the text of a picture book or inspired by the events of the book. -- Beth Jahn
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SONG STORIES FOR THE VERY YOUNG
01/02 SONG STORIES FOR THE VERY YOUNG
All the Pretty Little Horses Susan Jeffers (song)
All My Little Ducklings Monica Wellington (song)
Five Little Ducks Raffi
Five Little Pumpkins Iris Van Rynbach
Baby Beluga by Raffi (great illustrations-song)
Bear Went Over the Mountain Rosemary Wells
It's Raining
At the Zoo. III. V. Michaut.
Baby Beluga, Raffi,
The Bear Went Over the Mountain Rosemary Wells (song)
The Big, Big Sea by Martin Waddell (the mystery of night, moon and water)
Cat Goes Fiddle-I-Fee by Paul Galdone
Dance at Grandpa's (from Little House series) adapted from Wilder's book (shows a 'dance party')
Down by the Bay Raffi/Westcott (song)
The Earth and I by Frank Asch - use for Earth day/Spring (taking care of Earth)
The Farmer in the Dell.
A Farmyard Song An Old Rhyme w/New Pictures.
Fiddle-I-Fee by Jakki Wood; Fiddle-I-Fee by Melissa Sweet
Fiddle-i-fee a Traditional American Chant. Boston Little, Brown.Stanley, D. (1979)
Five Little Ducks by Jose AruegoAriane Dewey (song)
Hush-A Thai Lullaby by Mingfo Ho, beautiful illustrations, repetitive words kids can chant
Hush Little Baby by Sylvia Long (different words - use after song is taught)
In the Woods by Christini/Puricelli great illustrations (I 'sing' this book)
In the Tall, Tall Grass (expressive words - I 'sing' this book)
The Itsy Bitsy Spider by Iza Trapani
Little Robin Redbreast Shari Halpern
Little White Duck by Walt Whipppo (song)
Listen to the Rain by Bill Martin (expressive words; great for creating Orff parts)
London Bridge is Falling Down. Boston Little, Brown.Emberley, E. (1967)
Mice Squeak, We Speak by Tomie dePaola (great for introducing sounds of the voice)
Over in the Meadow Ezra Keats
Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle (use to teach "UP" and "DOWN" with xylophone)
Shake My Sillies Out. III. David Allender. New York Crown.Raffi.1987
The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren (the Tomten cares for the barn animals in the winter)
Train Song by Harriet Ziefert
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star by Iza Trapani
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. III. J. Noonan.
The Wheels on the Bus by Paul Zelinsky;
The Wheels on the Bus by Maryann Kovalski
Wheels on the Bus. III. S.K. Wickstrom. New York Crown.Raffi. (1990)
The Wheels on the Bus. New York Dutton.Zelinsky, P. O. (1990).
BACK to Literature and Music topics
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WEBSITES
10/04 An excellent site for finding stories for music teachers is:
www.musickit.com
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07/03 Here's a site that has a wonderful list of children's books to sing including photos of some of the book covers. www.musickit.com/storysongu-z.html
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Barnes and Noble have a free course called "An Introduction to Classical music" The blurb says it shows how Twist and Shout have the same rhythm pattern as music years ago. Sounds like it might work with your group. I especially like the "free" part. Website
http://www.BarnesandNobleuniversity.com < br>
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Another source I've found to buy used books is www.abebookscom It is a site
where lots of used book stores list their inventory and ship their books
worldwide. They also describe in detail the condition of the books.
Sometimes I find specific titles I'm looking for cheaper that eBay!
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Contributed by Dan Fee
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If you want to compare prices for books this address looks good:
http://www.FetchBook.Info/0670030376.html
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