Sing Me a Story

Teaching Pre K-8, Mar 2004 by Meagher, Sandy

This month's books include CDS and sheet music - or just text that's eminently sing-able!

Recently I had a great experience supporting a music teacher, Elizabeth Updyke, at Susquehanna Community School District in Pennsylvania. Elizabeth is working on a Master's degree in reading and has begun to incorporate phonemic awareness into her music program.

We began with kindergarten and second grades using the Abiyoyo book and CD by Pete Seeger (Simon & Schuster, 2001, ISBN: 0-689-84693-2). The students listened to the recording and telling of the tale of a father and son who defeat a giant, while Elizabeth showed the children corresponding pictures from the book. The students loved retelling events from the story. They drew pictures illustrating their favorite parts and are still heard frequently singing the Abiyoyo song (you'll find the music inside the book). The second graders made predictions during the story and enjoyed finding out if any of them came true. Check out the sequel to this book - the giant comes back in Abiyoyo Returns by Pete Seeger (Simon & Schuster, 2001, ISBN: 0-689-83271-0).

Sing-along stories

Another technique Elizabeth uses with her students is taking simple songs such as "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and putting stories to the melodies. One new book that she's adapting to these songs is Naughty Little Monkeys by Jim Aylesworth (Dutton, 2003, ISBN: 0-525-46940-0). The rollicking, rhyming text teaches the alphabet from "Andy all the way to Zelda." While parents are out, the monkeys get into a lot of mischief that's sure to delight early elementary students.

Another super book that lends itself to musical adaptation is The Day the Babies Crawled Away by Peggy Rathmann (Putnam, 2003, ISBN: 0-399-23196-X). In this rhyming story with charming silhouette-style illustrations, a boy saves five mischievous babies who crawl away from a picnic. Also, Giggle-Wiggle Wake-Up! by Nancy White Carlstrom (Dutton, 2003, ISBN: 0-375-81350-0) is a real invitation for parents, children and teachers to play with language and adapt the story to a simple tune. It rhymes and the refrain could be a melody of phonemic awareness: "It's a jingle-jangle juggle-up. It's a jingle-jangle day."

A hilarious book for a melodic chant is Pants, a rhyming book all about underwear, by Giles Andreae (Random House, 2003, ISBN: 0-385-75014-5).

Holiday favorites

Of course, some holiday picture books are songs children know. Susan Jeffers' beautiful Silent Night (Outlon, 2003, ISBN: 0-52547136-7) is perfect for all ages to read or sing and Frosty the Snowman by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins (Grosset & Dunlap, 2003, ISBN: 0-448-43199-8) is a delight. The end pages have the actual music to play.

Our musical world

The wonderful book I Hear America Singing!, collected and arranged by Kathleen Krull (Knopf, 2003, ISBN: 0-375-82527-4), comes with a 23-song CD. The book's introduction is by ArIo Guthrie, who says he remembers his mother singing to him and that he went to sleep with "strange songs and stories" in his head.

Here you'll find the words and music for 62 American folk songs, some of which will be familiar to the kids, some of which will be new. A short informational paragraph accompanies each song, presenting facts such as what part of the country the song is from and what the song's lyrics mean. An index groups the songs by type: duets, lullabies, sea chanteys, etc. This one's a must for libraries and music lovers.

A must for all music teachers is M is for Music by Kathleen Krull and illustrated by Stacy Innerst (Harcourt, 2003, ISBN: 0-152-01438-1). This alphabet book introduces musical terms from "allegro to zither" and the fusion of innovative art and vivid language is too good to miss. For example, the "M" page says "M is for music, music teachers (where would we be without them?), mistakes (everyone makes them) and Mozart (makes you smarter)." The page also includes the musical words "mariachi," "melody," "Motown" and "maraca," accompanied by Innerst's funky oil paintings. Make sure you look at those paintings carefully - you're bound to find a few surprises, such as the fact that on the "E" page, Elvis' microphone is actually a large ear!

I do hope you'll try some of these books with the music teachers in your life. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Without music, life would be a mistake." Have fun sharing the joy of music with your students.

LUCKY SUBSCRIBER

Mary Moreno-Peters

Glendora, CA

Sandy Meagher is the Library Department Chairperson and School Librarian in the Wayne Highlands School District, Honesdale, PA and a Teaching Editor of Teaching K-8. E-mail: Sandy@Teach ingK-8.com