Comments on: Making It Work: Children’s Literature

By: LeslieAnne Bird

LeslieAnne Bird — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 22:48:23 +0000

In reply to Belle. I let the children decide taking inspiration from the book.

By: Belle

Belle — Sun, 08 Mar 2020 23:11:56 +0000

In reply to Jane cromley. What lyrics did you use? Would love to more to create a program. Thank you,

By: Gloria Sandoval

Gloria Sandoval — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 01:43:34 +0000

In reply to Libby Rigney.

What grade levels do you use this with? It sounds really great. Will you share the lesson? My email is gloria2555@yahoo.com if you can share.

Thank you!

By: Beth Sellers

Beth Sellers — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 12:06:40 +0000

In reply to Elsie Ziebro. Snowmen at Christmas

By: Pat RC

Pat RC — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 02:32:23 +0000

I’ve always done this kind of approach in my creative music experiences for children classes (3-6 yo, vertical class). They love it! And they love it even more when they get to have a say in how the story and/or music goes 🙂

It’s nice to see like-minded people in this thread. To more fun music experiences 🙂

By: Drew Osborn

Drew Osborn — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 17:28:53 +0000

another idea is really inspiring people that are local to you. In northwest Arkansas we did Sam Walton: a study of musical perseverance- the students and i read his Bio-book then picked parts of he book and wrote dialogue and songs to go with his life and accomplishments. Another inspiration is George Washington Carver who lived just up the road on 1-49 in Missouri.

By: Elsie Ziebro

Elsie Ziebro — Sun, 27 Aug 2017 19:05:01 +0000

I am interested in starting to work with children’s literature for performances. I am wondering if anyone has found a quality story for a Christmas/Holiday performance for second grade, something that I could experiment with. It would be my first one.
Thanks in advance for your help!

By: Linda Wood

Linda Wood — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 18:30:12 +0000

I’ve done performances using “Leaf Man” by Ehlert, and “Listen to the Rain” by Martin and Archambault. Both provided many opportunities to incorporate original composition by 2nd and 3rd graders, as well as folk songs and dances. “Leaf Man” was a large puppet made of strung-together oversize leaves, which blew in the wind as the puppeteer crossed our stage. “Listen to the Rain” included aleatoric rain sounds using vocables and body percussion.

By: Hal Hobson

Hal Hobson — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 20:11:27 +0000

Thanks for this article! Great info and motivation. For those hesitant to jump into guided student creations, one thing to factor into the equation is that when the students create their own material, there is a MUCH shorter learning curve (less repetition) in your process. While working together to create is more work initially, they are much quicker to “own” the material when it is their own creation
I have used “The Mitten”, “Bremen Town Musicians”, “Loon Lake”, “Mama Don’t Allow”, “Millions of Cats”, “Arrow to the Sun” and “Little Babaji” (an appropriate re-telling of “Little Black Sambo”) and all with great success.

By: Lynn Osborne

Lynn Osborne — Sun, 09 Apr 2017 18:17:16 +0000

In reply to Jane. Ditto on "Today Is Monday".