Rainy Day Rhythms

It is spring! I've got some rainy day resources for your music lessons.

This video is a read aloud of "Listen To the Rain" by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault. It is paired with Chopin's "Raindrop Prelude". It starts bright with gentle sprinkles. The middle section is more dark and gloomy as the storm brews. At the end, the sun returns with a rainbow and it is bright and happy again. The music and book pair so well together. 

I used the song "Pitter Patter" from Let's Play Music. I actually turned this song into an ABA form to mimic the book. I asked the kids to create some motions for the A section and some different motions for the B section.

We created some rhythmic compositions to replace the B section of the Pitter Patter song. Since I am teaching digitally at the moment, I created a Scratch game to aid in their compositions. The students can click on the rhythms to cycle through 8 different rhythm choices. They can click the green button to hear the rhythms. They can click the purple button to hear the song in ABA form with the rhythms inserted as the B section. 

I hope your students enjoy some of these rainy day music activities!

Scratch: Size and Pitch

The challenges of distance learning have led me down a deep rabbit hole to learn how to code. I have been using Scratch to create interactive music experiences for my students learning at home. If you missed my other posts on Scratch, click this link.

I use fairy tales to help introduce the kindergarten students to the Orff instruments for the first time. I "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" we compare the sizes of the billy goats and the sizes of the bars. The bigger bars sound lower and the smaller bars sound higher. We also change our voices to sound higher and lower. In this Scratch game, the students click the goats and troll for sound effects.

Three Billy Goats Gruff

In Goldilocks, we continued to explore size and pitch and compared the different size xylophones. Papa Bear becomes the bass, Mama Bear becomes the alto, and  Baby Bear becomes the soprano. Goldilocks is the glockenspiel. In class, we get to take turns rotating through these instruments while I read the story. With the Scratch game, they get to play all the sounds. They can click the character or click the instrument.

Goldilocks

I hope your students enjoy these games! 

Click for more Scratch games created by me.

Click to join the Facebook Group Scratch for Music Educators.

Scratch: Triplet Games

 

The challenges of distance learning have led me down a deep rabbit hole to learn how to code. I have been using Scratch to create interactive music experiences for my students learning at home. If you missed my other posts on Scratch, click this link.

These games focus on triplets. "Loose Tooth" is a poem I learned at an Orff workshop using a body percussion ostinato. We would transfer the body percussion to unpitched percussion. This game allows students to change the rhythm of the ostinato. You can click each beat to change it from quarter note, triplet, or quarter rest. The instruments below can performed by clicking but it is easiest to use the number keys. I have embedded audio of the Loose Tooth poem so they can accompany with their ostinato.

Loose Tooth

After teaching "Loose Tooth" during student teaching, my mentor purchased this book as a gift-"A Tooth Story" by Margaret McNamara. I inserted a melodic phrase which also used the triplet rhythms. This Scratch allows the students to perform the melody of that phrase while listening to the audio of the story.

A Tooth Story

"Carnival Time" is a poem and song I composed. I brainstormed carnival words which would fit the quarter note and triplet rhythms. In a normal lesson, students would divide in groups and be given manipulatives to compose a phrase using the carnival words. They would get to choose instruments to perform for the class. In the Scratch game, the students click each beat to compose a phrase. The beats cycle through all the carnival words as well as a quarter rest. They can use the number keys to choose from several percussion sounds. If they click play, "Carnival Time" will begin in ABA form with the B section featuring the student's composition.

Carnival Time

I hope your students enjoy these games! 

Click for more Scratch games created by me.

Click to join the Facebook Group Scratch for Music Educators.

Scratch: The Mitten & The Cold Lady

    

The challenges of distance learning have led me down a deep rabbit hole to learn how to code. I have been using Scratch to create interactive music experiences where students can play virtual instruments. If you missed my first post on Scratch, click this link. 

My latest projects involve books-There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow (Lucille Colandro) and The Mitten (Jan Brett). Both these stories are additive, starting with one character/item and adding on more and more as the story progresses. Additive stories are great to turn into sound stories adding musical sounds to represent the characters/items. This helps students focus on listening to the music and learning how to keep their instrument quiet when it is not their turn.

While teaching virtually, these lessons would be impossible without the help of virtual instruments. I used Scratch to code the games. I recorded myself reading and singing the story. This will begin when they click the play button. When they click the pictures of the items/animals, the image will change to an instrument and play that instrument sound. The images of the animals for The Mitten were taken from the free mask printables provided by the author Jan Brett.

I hope you and your students can enjoy these Scratch games. Again, you do not need a login to access Scratch. It is completely free. Simply share the link and they will have access to the game. 

The Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow

The Mitten

Click for more Scratch games created by me.

Start a Music Library

I love to use children's literature in the classroom. I have acquired many books over the years. I used to keep these books on the top shelf of my bookcase, but recently to move them to location more easily accessible to students. I am in love my new music library and my students are excited too!

I purchased the white cardboard magazine holders from IKEA. They came in packs of 5 for only $1.99. I created labels to organize my books alphabetically. I have created labels with 1 letter, 2 letters, 3 letters, and 4 letters per label to accommodate libraries of many sizes. I also have 2 separate holders for Non-fiction books--Biographies and Other.

I found the canvas music banner at the Target dollar spot during the holidays for only $3. I painted the letters spelling "library" by hand. I have recreated a printable banner available for download. You could customize your banner by printing on colored or decorative paper.

 I often use centers when I want to assess individual students. One station is the assessment and the other stations are music related games or activities. I have decided to use the library as a station in my center rotations.  I posted these rules as reference for the students. Simple directions for the library center have also been added to my Emergency Sub-Tub. Even subs without a musical background could manage this center.

I also created a book review template so students can recommend books to others. They can share things they like about the book, connections they made to the book, and can rate the book with star emojis.

I have bundled the alphabet labels, banner, rules poster, and book review sheet in a pdf file. It is available for download on my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. I have also included tips for selecting books and acquiring books on a budget. Download this Music Library Starter Kit and all you'll have to do is add books!

Click Here to Download

Finding Do with "Leap Back Home To Me"

I am a member of the MusicEd Blogs Community on Facebook. We are collaborating for the month of February to share our best ideas for teaching melody! If you are not already following us on Facebook, you should click the link above. 

For today's post, I am sharing a lesson on how to introduce melodic improvisation with a picture book. I love using children's literature in the classroom. Books are magical and can capture the attention of even the most challenging class.  about the book "Leap Back Home to Me" by Laruen Thompson. This book is featured in an old post from 2012, but I have updated my lesson procedures after many years of refining.

If you are not already familiar with this book, watch this short video:

When singing with solfege, I always call do home base. I use this book with second grade to introduce melodic improvisation on the Orff instruments and ending on do. 

The book is very rhythmic and is set up in stanzas of 4 lines. In each stanza, the first 3 lines are different places that the baby frog leaps when playing and exploring away from the momma frog. The 4th line always repeats the phrase "leap back home to me." Here's an example:

"Leap frog over the  lady bug,

Leap frog over the bee,

Leap frog over the tickly clover,

Then leap back home to me."

 I start reading the text in a speaking voice. But, on the last phrase, I sing "mi, mi, re, re, do." The students soon catch on to the form and anticipate the recurring phrase to join in the singing.

After finishing the book, we read notation of the phrase on the board and sing with solfege and hand signs. I also review the form of the poem asking how many places the frog leaps away from the momma before leaping back home. (Answer: 3)

We move to the Orff instruments and set up our instruments in C pentatonic, removing F and B. The students echo short melodies I create with mi, re, and do. We compare these melodies and I ask them which phrases sound finished.  We conclude together that it sounds more complete to end on do.  Then, we learn the phrase for "leap back home to me" (mmrrd) and perform it again while reading through the book.

To begin melodic improvisation, I have students echo this short phrase with a speaking voice and clicking their mallets-"leap away, leap back home". The rhythm is ta ta ta rest, ta ta ta rest.  I instruct students to choose new notes on their instruments for "leap away" but play mi, re, do for "leap back home". We practice this phase several times together and in small sections. Then, I ask them to choose new notes for "leap back" as well. The only note we must play together is "home". We take turns sharing as small groups and then I offer individuals to perform as well. If all the students feel eager to solo, I will provide a steady beat bordun on C and G as we take turns performing quickly, one after the other.

The students always enjoy the book and are eager to explore the instruments and improvise. By the end of the year, I introduce rhythmic building blocks and to get students comfortable improvising with rhythms using quarter notes and paired eighth notes.

I hope you and your students enjoy this lesson! It is one of my favorite activities I look forward to each year. If you would like more ideas about teaching melody, don't forget to follow our MusicEd Blogs collaboration for the entire month of February.

Nutcracker Resources

I have been teaching the Nutcracker for many years and my resources continue to grow!

The Story

My favorite book to share is a pop-up book that I got on sale one year in February for $3.99. Unfortunately, it is currently out of print. If you happen to see it in a used bookstore, snatch it up! Here is the full information:

The Nutcracker: A Magical Pop-up Adventure

Denchfield, Nick

Published by Macmillan Children's Books 2003-10-17, 2003

ISBN 10: 033396134X / ISBN 13: 9780333961346

The students are in awe of this pop-up, especially the spinning sugarplum fairy at the end!

Lesson Ideas

During my first years teaching the Nutcracker, we did little more than read the book and then dramatize the story with a few props and music selections. A couple years ago, I purchased a new resource book to create lessons with more music connections.

Nutcracker Suite
Active Listening Strategies for the Music Classrooom
By Wesley Ball
Book and CD ($19.99 at westmusic.com)

.It includes many lesson ideas with a variety of activities. There are listening maps, printable worksheets, and a music cd. My favorite activity suggested by the book uses music from the March. When the students hear the trumpets, they are locomotor and march around the room. When they hear the strings, they are nonlocomotor and wave a scarf in the air. During the B section, when they hear flutes, they crawl on the floor and pretend to be mice. Many of the lessons encourage active listening and suggest activities to get the students engaged.

The Ballet

I always show portions of the full-ballet on video, skipping through the longer dance numbers due to time constraints. I was recently introduced to blubbr.tv and decided to use that site to create an interactive quiz. (To learn more about Blubbr follow this link.) I created 2 quizzes, one for each Act. The questions cover some basic music terms such as melody, harmony, dynamics, tempo, and instrument families. It introduces some basic ballet terms--pointe, plié, pirouette, and passé; and some basic theatre elements--costume, prop, scenery, and special effects. The video clips were taken from a YouTube video from a 2008 performance by the Royal Ballet. Follow the links below to find the quizzes.

Nutcracker Ballet Act 1

Nutcracker Ballet Act 2

Art

I also teach visual art once a week and stumbled across a few Nutcracker art projects on Pinterest. The students could be working on these projects while watching the ballet or listening to the music.

Grades 2 through 5 have had fun learning about symmetry making this project. We discuss how the ballerina has linear symmetry and the snowflakes have radial symmetry. Follow the link to the original post on krokotak.com for some printable templates and easy tutorial pictures.



Older students can practice symmetry by drawing Nutcrackers. This would take quite a bit of time to finish and would require more teacher guidance. I have not attempted this with students yet. I haven't had the time to invest in this project. If you have an art teacher at your school, perhaps you can suggest a collaborative unit. More sample pictures are featured on the original blog post at "A Faithful Attempt".

The younger students enjoy making these finger puppets. The free printables can be found on the website of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. To save paper, before copying I eliminated the instruction on each page to fit all 3 finger puppets on one page.  You can see this layout in the top picture of this post.

When searching for the original source for these finger puppets, I noticed they also have a new pair of finger puppets available and a project for a miniature theatre!

Coda

My students are always excited to see my Nutcracker sitting on the edge of my desk, but I think I may be more excited than them. I love the magic of the Nutcracker and look forward to teaching it every year!  Do you teach the Nutcracker? What are your favorite activities?

My 4 year old daughter is now in ballet class. Next year, we will start a tradition of seeing the Nutcracker live on stage. I can't wait!

Buzz, Ollie, Luke, and Lori

I see my students once a week for 50 minutes. Yes, even kindergarten! There have been some recent conversations on a Facebook Music Teacher board concerning lesson planning when you have kindergarteners for an extended time. This post will share a few of my tips when lesson planning for kindergarten.

I usually try to plan 3 different activities for my kindergarten classes in order to keep their attention and minimize discipline issues.  I include a variety of activities in each day which could include a listening activity or book, singing, instruments, movement (locomotor or nonlocomotor), dramatic play, dancing, play party games, etc. Today, I'm going to share a few books that are written with a specific goal to introduce a musical concept. I may begin a lesson with a book or use it as a transition activity between songs or games.

The first books I purchased were the Buzz and Ollie books.

There are 3 books in this series.  In Buzz and Ollie's Steady Beat Adventure, the kids travel to their grandparents' house and discover lots of environmental sounds that make a steady beat like windshield wipers, a clock, and a dripping faucet. In Buzz and Ollie's High, Low Adventure, the kids get lost in the forest and meet lots of animals giving them directions. But, they were told they should only follow the sounds that are low to find their way back home. The animals with high sounds are trying to trick them. In Buzz and Ollie's Loud, Soft Adventure, the kids hear quiet sounds like a baby bear snoring and then loud sounds like a bear roaring. The symbols for piano and forte also appear in the book.

I bought the hard cover books about six or seven years ago from westmusic.com for 14.95 each. Unfortunately, these books are currently out of print. However, you may find some used copies online for a variety of prices.

Another great book that is still in print is Luke & Lori's Musical Journey. You can find it at westmusic.com for $19.95.

This book is a collection of 4 short stories. They could be read all together or you could read each story by itself. Luke and Lori, the main characters in the book, introduce the basic elements of music as they take a musical journey and meet different people who teach them about long and short sounds, tempo, dynamics, and high and low sounds. 

As I said before, I try to plan a variety of activities for kindergarten classes to prevent discipline issues. Even if I cannot plan a movement activity in my lesson, sometimes simply changing locations in the room can help keep the wiggles to a minimum. Most of the time, my students are sitting around the edge of my solid blue square carpet facing the boards. When I have a book to share with the students, they get to sit on my alphabet carpet and face the back of the room near my desk and keyboard. The rule is only one person per square and everyone must be sitting criss-cross applesauce on their bottom so everyone behind them can see. Below, you can see a picture of my carpets. (For a full tour of my classroom, check out this previous post.) .

My students love these stories. I try to include one story every few weeks throughout the entire year. They would be great for a substitute teacher as well! Do you have any of these books? If so, share your ideas and opinions below!

Coda: An afterthought regarding the carpets. The solid blue rug and the alphabet carpet are actually touching because the older kids are too big for one carpet and must sit around the edges of both carpets

The Remarkable Farkle McBride

I teach this book every year to my second graders, but I have also used it as an emergency lesson for a substitute teacher for any grade level. If you are not familiar with the book, you can browse a few of the pages on Amazon.

My musical goal for this book is to introduce or review the instrument families. This book is very well written. The words naturally fall into a rhythmic beat with a compound meter. The vocabulary used is very rich; some of my favorite words selected for this book include beseeching, astonished, superb, renowned, rhapsodical, and tether.

Before reading the book, I introduce the instrument families. Whenever we encounter an instrument in the book, I ask what family it belongs to. Before reading, I also introduce onomatopoeia and alliteration. The students are asked to listen for both of these literary elements.

Onomatopoeia



When they hear onomatopoeia, they are supposed to show me the sign language "O". Each instrument features their own onomatopoeia and when they instruments come together at the end, I have the students try match the words to their instrument. We also discuss the percussion sounds, discovering that "clang" probably comes from a metal instruments.
We also learn how to spell onomatopoeia. In my 8th grade English class, we were given onomatopoeia as a spelling word. My friends and I discovered that it was easy to spell the word if you sing it to the tune of "Old MacDonald." To this day, I always hum the tune to spell the word and I will never forget it. I practicing singing it with the students and then we play a trick on the classroom teacher. When the students line up, they ask the teacher if onomatopoeia can be a bonus word on their spelling test. The first year I did this, the teachers thought I was crazy. They were astonished when the majority of the students spelled it correctly on their Friday spelling test! The power of music is amazing! :)

Alliteration

When they hear alliteration, they show me the sign language "A." There are numerous examples of alliteration. Here are some of my favorites:
"Farkle flung his flute"
"boulevards buzzed"
"whimpy and whiney"

Of course, sometimes, we found both onomatopoeia and alliteration in the same example.

"boom, bash, clanga ma clash"

Some students would use two hands to show both letters. Since I was using one hand to hold the book, I would use my other hand to switch between both letters.
I really like the use of hand gestures. Its a quick way to visually assess the entire class and see if most students are understanding the concept. Its also a nice alternative to everyone yelling out the answers or raising their hands to try to give the answer.

At the end of the book, I usually demonstrate each of the instruments Farkle played in the book and pick some students to try them out too. I pass around resin so the students can see it. I pass around a conductors baton (a cheapo, not my Mollard!) This lesson is definitely not Orff-based, but the students are always so intrigued with this lesson. It is a favorite.

Feel free to comment below and share your ways to use Farkle in lessons.








Leap Back Home to Me

I love using children's literature in the classroom. Last spring, when browsing the book fair, this book immediately caught my attention. The title, "Leap Back Home to Me," made me think of how we call the pitch "do" home base. A few weeks ago, this book was used in a second grade lesson to introduce melodic improvisation, phrasing, and ending a phrase on "do."

Even though I had been looking forward to using this book in a lesson all summer long, my student teacher was actually the one who got to teach this lesson. The book is very rhythmic and is set up in stanzas of 4 lines. In each stanza, the first 3 lines are different places that the baby frog leaps when playing and exploring away from the momma frog. The 4th line always repeats the phrase "leap back home to me."

When my student teacher first read the book she used a speaking voice until she got to the phrase "leap back home to me." On this phrase, we used a simple melody "mi, mi, re, re, do." The students naturally began patting a steady beat and soon caught on to the form of the stanzas and began singing along with the recurring phrase "leap back home to me". 

After finishing the book, the student teacher directed the students' attention to the magnetic hand signs and had the students echo the pattern "mi, mi, re, re, do." She brought the students' attention back to the form of the poem asking how many places the frog leaps away from the momma before leaping back home. She asked them to pat a steady beat and count how many beats are in each sentence. (Answer: 4). Then, she asks them to calculate how many beats we pat before we sing "leap back home to me" (Answer: 12). They practice this pattern of patting 12 beats and then using hand signs to sing "mi, mi, re, re, do" before moving to the barred instruments.

Once at the instruments, she instructs them how to properly remove the F and B bars for C pentatonic. Using the "fake instrument," she has them echo some short melodies with mi, re, and do. Some melodies end on do and some do not. She asks them which phrases sound like they are finished (Answer: the ones that end in do). Then, she has the students echo the pattern "mi, mi, re, re, do" from the phrase "leap back home to me."

When the students can successfully play the melodic pattern, she asks the students to click their mallets for 12 beats and then play the melodic phrase. When students can successfully perform the pattern of 12 clicks and then the melody, she allows them to improvise on the 12 beats picking 12 bars to play before playing the   phrase "mi, mi, re, re, do."

Lastly, the students are asked to play along while the teacher reads the book again. At first, the students were playing way too loud. Even though the teacher was using the pendant microphone, it was still impossible to hear the book with 24 kids playing very loudly on their instruments. After asking the students to pretend like they were tiptoeing instead of leaping, they were playing quiet enough to hear the story. The students seemed to enjoy the book and were not afraid to explore the instruments and improvise. By the end of the year, I will introduce rhythmic building blocks and begin to get students comfortable improvising with rhythms using ta and titi.

Where Can I Find This Book?

Scholastic.com-Paperback-$3.71

Amazon.com-Hardback $13.98

BarnesandNoble.com- Hardback-$13.98

Tour My Classroom

Tomorrow is the first day of school. The kids are coming! I took pictures of my classroom before it gets disturbed by the chaos of the school year.

This is the view standing in the doorway. The students always enter and sit around the edge of the carpets in a circle.

You can see most of my instrumentarium stays set up at all times and is readily available. The glockenspiels are kept on the short bookcase under the white board. When it is time to play, it only takes a few seconds to add the glocks to the front row. The red baskets actually flip over and become the tables for the glocks so the students aren't hitting their arms on their knees when trying to play.

To the right of the white board you can see my learning objectives. I'm ready for kids tomorrow!

This is the view of the left side of the room. You may have seen my storage cabinets in a previous post when I discussed "Organizing Instruments" or "Boomwhacker Storage". 

To the left of the storage cabinets you see a class set of 30 chairs. These chairs are rarely used in my classroom. I used them for beginning band about 6 years ago and kept them in case I ever started band again. But, due to scheduling conflicts, it is just impossible to have a successful beginning band. I wasn't seeing the kids often enough and they were really developing more bad habits. The students start band in 6th grade at the middle school and the band director has told me that my students excel even though they did not have beginning band in 5th grade. Instead of band, I have an Orff Ensemble which is open to 4th or 5th graders by audition.

On the music stand next to the congas, you can see my "Fake Instrument." If you missed the post on my "Orff Visual Aid" read the post to learn more about how I use the visual and how to make one for your classroom. 

On the left side of the white board you will see our classroom expectations and school-wide discipline clip chart. To learn more about these, please visit the post "Star Musicians Classroom Expectations."

This is the view of the left side of the room facing the door. 

You can see the music notes hanging from the ceiling. By the door, there is a treble clef to show where the line leader should stand. Be sure to check out the posts on  "Line Leader" or "Assessing Music With a Line-Up Song" if you missed them. 

Next to the door, you see a bulletin board that I use to record the stars at the end of each class.

Behind the door, I have posted our school-wide pledge of excellence (which is recited every morning after the pledge of allegiance), our school-wide voice levels, and our school-wide expectations using our school acronym CGES (Cedar Grove Elementary School).

The is the view of the right side of the room, my teacher corner. 

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these dance posters! They are posted above my filing cabinets because this is really the only space that I can put all 4 of them together. My students loves these posters too because they feature pictures of actual kids demonstrating the dance terms. They are awesome. For several years, I taught dance on a Monday rotation instead of music. Starting this year, I will teach visual art on Mondays, but will still incorporate dance and movement into my music lessons Tuesday-Friday. I purchased the posters from West Music several years ago but could not find them when searching online. This is a direct link to their manufacturer.

These are my resources. The top shelf features children's literature and poetry I use in lessons as well as some other binders (teacher handbook, core content binder, etc.) I have grouped several of my supplemental books and materials by categories (Dance, Multicultural, Games & Flashcards, Song Collections, Orff Volumes, Orff Arrangements). On the bottom shelf, you see several teacher manuals from text book series, but a rarely consult them for lessons. I usually pull stuff from my Orff Levels Binders or other supplemental books. You also see the KET Arts Toolkits which are some fabulous resources too, but I don't consult them as often as I should.

On the center shelf, you also see this organizer. This stores all my small items so that I can get to them easily. The top rows hold my recorder strings. You also see some office supplies, loose screws and bolts, etc. I stole this idea from another teacher that I observed during college visits. (Thank you, Lisa!)

To the right of my computer desk, I have 2 short file cabinets and 2 taller ones. (These are underneath the dance posters.) On top of the short cabinets, I have several file stackers. One stack has a slot for each grade level to keep papers seperate that need to be copied or returned and also any books or visual aids needed for that week's lesson. This is the cleanest you will ever see this area. I actually "LOL"ed when I took this picture thinking of how quickly it will fill up. The shorter stack on the left is where I keep papers for each of the student groups I am in charge of (Orff Ensemble, Choir, Academic Team, Future Problem Solving). With this many student groups, this is a necessity to keep rosters, parent letters, music, and other handouts separate.

I love peeking into other teachers' rooms. Whenever our academic team scrimmages at another school, I always sneak away to check out the music teacher's room. I also love Pinterest and blogging which allows me to see into music rooms across the country or across the world! 

Here are few links to check out some other teachers' rooms:

Mrs. King always takes some nice pics of her classroom each year.

Here is her most recent post, but be sure to check out her post from last year as well.

Miscellaneous Me overhauled her classroom in the spring and has some nice pictures as well.

Yourangelofmusic.com has several classroom photos in a gallery in the right column.

If you have pictures of your classroom, feel free to post the link in a comment below.

Once Upon a Musical Pair

As we are approaching the end of the summer, I thought some of you may be examining your wishlists and ordering new materials for your classroom. I thought I would share some recommendations.

I absolutely love these 2 books:

"Once Upon a Folk Tale" and "Once Upon a Mountain Tale" by Linda Rockwell High and Carol Kindt. 

They are each $14.50 at westmusic.com. They are each $15.95 at amazon.com but eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. I suggest you visit Amazon to take a sneak-peak inside  "Once Upon a Mountain Tale" to view a few pages and see if you like it. Both books are formatted the same way.

Each book has 8 stories set to music. 

"Once Upon a Folk Tale" includes:

Chicken Little 

3 Billy Goats Gruff  

How the Camel Got His Hump

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

The Fox Who Lost His Dinner 

The Gingerbread Boy

The Old Woman and Her Pig 

Silly Jack

"Once Upon a Mountain Tale" includes 6 Jack tales and 2 Grandfather tales set to melodies from Appalachian folk songs and fiddle tunes. (I teach in Kentucky so this book was an awesome addition to my resource library!) 

Orff Arrangements

When it is time to insert a song, the reader will see a treble clef appear in the story. Although you could sing the melodies with an accompaniment, the songs include very simple Orff arrangements. Due to time constraints, sometimes I teach only the bass part. You could adapt the arrangement to meet your need by omitting or adapting some of the instrument parts. You could also play some of the parts on the piano to accompany the singing. If you are a string player, you would definitely want to bring your instrument to accompany the Appalachian folk tunes!

Sound Effects

 The characters in each story have specified sound effects with a variety of percussion instruments. The selection of includes: claves, cowbell, finger cymbals, guiro, hand drum, maracas, tambourine, temple blocks, vibraslap, wood block, cabasa, chime tree, gong, log drum, metal shaker, piccolo blocks, ratchet, recorder, sleigh bells, snare drum, suspended cymbal, timpani, triangle, wind chime, bass drum, conga, slapstick. If you don't have some of these instruments, you could make some substitutions. The characters that have sound effects appear in bold in the story to signal to the reader to pause to hear the sound effect.

Visual Aids Included!

The appendix of each book includes visuals for each character you can copy, color, and laminate to serve as visual aids during the lesson. I always glue mine onto cardstock and laminate them so they will last from year to year. I lay the visual on the carpet in front of each instrument group to remind them which character they are representing. I store them in ziploc bags and use a binder clip to keep them with the book.

Drama Integration!

The stories are short and simple and could very easily lead to dramatic performance in the classroom or for a public audience. Elaborate costumes and props are not needed, just an active imagination! I have never performed this for parents, but have often invited classroom teachers to come to a few minutes early to see a special performance. Unfortunately, I have never recorded any of these performances on video. If I ever record one, I will share it with you.

Substitute Teacher Plans!

The instructions are very simple. I have the "Chicken Little" story on stand-by as emergency sub plans. The substitute could very easily incorporate the percussion sound effects but would most likely omit the Orff melodies. I have recorded my voice singing each of the melodies so they can listen and play them for the students, since the sub most likely won't be able to read music. 

If you order one or both of these, I'm sure you'll be happy with your purchase!