Music and books: all together now.Promote cooperation and cultural pride with great books that entice kids to sing along! Picture a stadium full of cheering fans singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" or a family car resounding re·sound v. re·sound·ed, re·sound·ing, re·sounds v.intr. 1. To be filled with sound; reverberate: The schoolyard resounded with the laughter of children. 2. with a round of "Three Blind Mice three blind mice sightless rodents; lost tails to farmer’s wife. [Nurs. Rhyme: Opie, 306] See : Blindness ." These scenes evoke togetherness and pride--both of which you strive to nurture in your classroom. Now you can put music to work toward those goals with a host of recent books that celebrate children's songs. * Personal Favorites Start off by choosing some of your favorite childhood songs to share with your students, then ask them to do the same. Let students write down and illustrate verses. * Folk Songs for Shared Heritage If you want to expand your repertoire, Gonna Sing My Head Off! American Folk Songs for Children collected and arranged by Kathleen Krull (Knopf) has a selection of 62 well-known folk songs. Or you can use some of the wonderful picture books that illustrate song lyrics. The Cat Came Back, illustrated by Bill Slavin (Whitman), She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain by Kathleen Bullock (Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster U.S. publishing company. It was founded in 1924 by Richard L. Simon (1899–1960) and M. Lincoln Schuster (1897–1970), whose initial project, the original crossword-puzzle book, was a best-seller. ), Skip to My Lou
Skip to My Lou is a popular children's song. History Skip to My Lou was a popular partner stealing dance from America's frontier period. and There's a Hole in the Bucket, both adapted by Nadine Bernard Westcott (Little, Brown), are excellent examples of folk songs in picture-book format. * Active Singing For play songs that include games and actions, try Shake It Shake It may refer to:
* Enchanting Chants If singing isn't your strong suit, memorize a collection of rhythmic poems for your students to snap their fingers or clap to while chanting. Shimmy Shake Earthquake: Don't Forget to Dance Poems collected by Cynthia Jabar (Little, Brown) contains poems that call out for clapping and moving. Miss Mary Mack and Other Children's Street Rhymes compiled by Joanna Cole Joanna Cole (born August 11, 1944), who also writes under the pseudonym B. J. Barnet is a United States author of children’s books who teaches science. She is most famous as the author of The Magic School Bus series of children's books. and Stephanie Calmenson (Morrow Junior Books) is a collection of hand-clapping, ball-bouncing rhymes that your students may already use in playground games. * A Chorus of Voices All Join In by Quentin Blake is a collection of poems that clamor for choral reading. The selection "Sorting Out the Kitchen Pans" can be performed with a pots-and-pans band. Nancy Van Laan's rhythmic picture book Possum Come A-Knockin has a refrain and individual parts that can be assigned for readers' theater. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr., and John Archambault (Simon and Schuster) is an infectious rhyming alphabet book. Pairs of students can learn the alphabet lines while a chorus jazzes up the refrains. * A Family Affair Music can also help validate each child's family musical heritage. Lullabies, holiday songs, and even tunes sung on car trips are an integral part of many families' traditions. Ask kids to share special family songs; families can even make tapes for the class. Have each child transcribe To copy data from one medium to another; for example, from one source document to another, or from a source document to the computer. It often implies a change of format or codes. the words of his or her family's songs as a language enrichment activity. In Music, Music for Everyone by Vera Williams Vera B. Williams (b. January 28, 1927) is an American children's writer and illustrator. Her best known work, A Chair for My Mother, has won multiple awards and was featured on the children's television show Reading Rainbow.[2] She was the U.S. (Greenwillow), family and friends form a band to perform at a neighborhood gathering. For another touching look at family music, try Grandpa's Song by Tony Johnston Tony Johnston is an Australian television presenter, producer and radio broadcaster. Tony began his career in 1986, as a presenter on the music video show 'Saturday Jukebox' on the Seven Network in Australia. (Dial). As Grandpa starts to lose his memory, his grandchildren teach him the songs he had taught them. IT'S A MULTIDISCIPLINARY MUSIC BOX How one teacher mixes music into the curriculum with help from his classroom computer What do levers have to do with music? They're just one way Wayne Bacer and his sixth-grade students integrate music with the curriculum at Pepper Tree pepper tree: see sumac. Elementary School elementary school: see school. in Upland, California Upland is a city in San Bernardino County, California with an elevation of 1,242 feet. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 68,393. It was incorporated on May 15, 1906, after previously being named North Ontario. . Wayne, a free-time musician who also operates a recording studio, believes that music belongs in the classroom. "Music is part of people's culture," he says. "It's part of the way people express themselves." With technology like the CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). Microsoft Musical Instruments, Wayne says integrating music into the curriculum is "a piece of cake." Sounds Around the World More than 200 instruments are represented in Microsoft Musical Instruments, including the didjeridu, an aboriginal instrument from Australia. In addition to navigating a world map to investigate instruments of different regions, Wayne's students can hear and play more than 1,500 sound samples; listen to professional musicians play; explore related history articles; and view photographs of instruments and ensembles. Musical Roots "Who am I? Where did I come from?" Wayne always starts off the year by having students investigate their heritage. They use Microsoft Musical Instruments to add a tuneful touch to their oral presentations. And the program spices up written reports as well. "Students can copy any screen into a word-processing program," Wayne says. They then use the photos and illustrations to enhance their reports. About Those Levers... There's serious science to be learned through music, Wayne points out. If you're studying levers, you'll want to check out the program's pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a type of electric guitar that uses a metal slide to stop the strings, rather than fingers on strings as with a conventional guitar. The pedal steel is placed horizontally on a stand, with the strings facing up towards the player, and is typically plucked . Ask students how they think changes in pitch are achieved. (Locate the knee levers on an illustration of the instrument.) You can get into the science of gears, he says, by using the program to investigate string instruments This is a list of string instruments categorized according to the technique used to produce sound, followed by a list of string instruments grouped by country or region of origin. . What happens to the length of a string if you turn the tuner? Students can zoom in on a violin being tuned to learn more. Gigs in History Wayne's students also explore musical careers-past and present. Using Microsoft Musical Instruments, students discover many options--from rock bands to orchestras--depending on their choice of instruments. Questions like "Would you rather play in a baroque or a 20th-century orchestra?" lead students to explore historical differences (20th-century orchestras added brass instruments and dropped the harpsichord harpsichord, stringed musical instrument played from a keyboard. Its strings, two or more to a note, are plucked by quills or jacks. The harpsichord originated in the 14th cent. and by the 16th cent. Venice was the center of its manufacture. ). What's in Those Hits? Kids build thinking skills when they listen harder to their own favorite music, says Wayne. Wayne's students bring in and analyze hit (but school-appropriate) songs from their own collections. "Kids love doing this," says Wayne, who shares some favorite jazz and blues for contrast. "They begin to see that if you just tweak one little thing, you get a whole different style." Product Information Microsoft Musical Instruments Platform: Macintosh or IBM-compatible with Windows: CD-ROM drive Price: $79 Contact: Microsoft, (800) 426-9400 DONNA LEVENE, library media specialist at Homestead Elementary School in Englewood, Colorado, is the author of Music Through Children's Literature: Theme and Variations (Teacher Ideas Press). To order, call (800) 237-6124. |
|
||||||||||||||||||

Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion