ANYWAY... school has only been out for two weeks and already I have taken two professional development classes (I will share) and updated some of my back to school forms.
First, for my Mesa peeps. The first PD class I took was a suggestion from my lovely teammate. We took it together and let's just say, PD classes will never be the same after this class. It was so FUN! It was Children's Literature and Music. Look it up in ERO if you are interested. Those not from MPS, the focus of the class was integrating movement, chants, and music to children's literature. Granted a lot of the things were geared for Kinder and 1st, but I did get some cute ideas to get my kids moving when needed.
What I am going to share was my favorite part of the class. I absolutely LOVED the idea of adding a soundtrack to a book when reading it aloud. It really adds mood. The trick is to find the right song (instrumental) to match the theme of the book. It really can be done to most books, but lucky for you I am going to share some of the books and songs given to me in the class :)
Tuesday by David Weisner - I use this book as a writing assignment. My kids LOVE it! If you have never seen this book, it is a story, told in detailed illustrations with only a few captions, about frogs that mysteriously rise out of their pond on floating lily pads as the sun sets on a Tuesday evening. The adventure takes the frogs into an unsuspecting town with a number of encounters with startled residents before dawn arrives. It won the Caldecott for a reason. The illustrations are beautiful. I first share the illustrations with the class walking very slowly around the room so all students are able to see the pictures. I am still on a mission to find this book in big book format. So far I have not been successful, but will post when I do find it because I think it would work better. Now the song that was suggested is "Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner. This is the perfect song to set the mood of flying frogs. The writing assignment is for the students to write the story for the images. I repeat showing the images, going even slower to allow students to write in journals. The stories they create are wonderful! At the end of the book it shows pigs flying. You could do an alternative assignment and have kids write a story about pigs flying. I suggest only doing that assignment if your kids have had plenty of practice with imagery. Where as the book really assists with the visual imagery for word choice.
Another favorite book of mine is Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type by Doreen Cornin
I don't have a specific lesson to tie with this book, except sharing a fun read aloud :) The suggested song is "The Typewriter" by Leroy Anderson
For the Pre-school, Kinder, and even 1st grade teachers I have
The song for this book is "Aquarium" from Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens. Great book for teaching sharing is caring :)
