Online Music Resource

While researching some music sites on the internet today I stumbled upon the San Francisco Symphony's website for kids. It's great! What I love is that it lets kids explore the different elements of music in a fun way in their section entitled "The Music Lab". I plan to have my kids play on the site this afternoon as some of their reward computer time. Check it out!
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Our Favorite Fall Book & Activity

My children's favorite Fall/Halloween book is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. It's one of those books that always gets a lot of laughs, involves children DOING something through the whole book, and has a million cross-curricular connections. As I pulled the large orange tub of Fall books out of the attic last week there were literally squeals from my children as we pulled out this book. The story could be considered a little bit scary, but in the end it turns out well. I always told my Kindergarten students that in the end the fears were all in the main character's imagination, much like many of our fears can be in our imaginations. I would recommend the book for children 4-10.

Once upon a time there was a little old lady who was not afraid of anything until one windy autumn night, while walking in the woods, she hears CLOMP CLOMP.
"I'm not afraid of you," says the little old lady. But the noises keep growing. CLOMP CLOMP, WIGGLE WIGGLE, SHAKE SHAKE, CLAP CLAP....and the little old lady who was not afraid of anything has the scare of her life! But by using her head and coming up with a great idea, the little old lady finds that all turns out just right in the end.
(taken from nancypolette.com)

I always enjoy putting different instruments with the sound effects in the book. If you have a tambourine, maraca, drum, and rhythm sticks at home they are great to use. But if you just make funny body motions with the "Wiggle Wiggle" and "Shake Shake", etc... that's fun, too! I found an excellent literature guide for the story which has many easy ideas to extend the story. Click here to go to the guide.

Best of all, the story can be used for music, literature, writing, research, and science! This week I plan to do a little something with the story each day, following the guide I linked to above.

I hope you try the story and have fun with it! (It's in most libraries, and I noticed that Amazon has the book for $6.99.... and if you use it year after year, it's worth it!)

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Classical Music Lessons in the Van

We spend a good amount of time in our van. This morning we had a Spanish class twenty minutes from our house... so, that's forty minutes of time I can use for school! Normally we keep lots of CDs in the van and listen to multiplication tables, geography songs, a variety of instrumental music, and lots of Christian radio. I want to share what we listened to today - because my children both enjoyed it and you can get it at your local library.

Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery is a tale about the famous composer Antonio Vivaldi. The story includes tons of Vivaldi's music and lots of action to keep your children interested. It is part of a larger series entitled Clasical Kids, which includes stories about Tchaikovsky, Bach, Mozart, Handel, and Beethoven. Children anywhere from Kindergarten through eighth grade can get something out of these CDs. When I was teaching public school music we used these in my classroom (generally when I had to have a sub, because they require little teacher direction) and the children always begged for more and remembered the composers year after year.

I had the privelege of attending a workshop led by Susan Hammond, the creator of Classical Kids, about 12 years ago and it left such an imprint on me. I love good classical music, and I love biographies, and Classical Kids is a perfect marriage of the two. My daughter can still sing parts of The Magic Flute by Mozart, thanks to listening to "Mozart's Magic Fantasy" over and over when she was in Kindergarten!

It sure is nice to hop in the car and have some peace and quiet, all the while my children are learning about a great composer. That's a keeper in my opinion!
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