As I'm sitting and watching the butterflies and caterpillars outside my window, it reminded me of the fun lessons I used to teach the butterfly life cycle. In addition to doing fun butterfly crafts and writing
10 picture books to sing: Great list for music teachers and for parents!
As I'm sitting and watching the butterflies and caterpillars outside my window, it reminded me of the fun lessons I used to teach the butterfly life cycle. In addition to doing fun butterfly crafts and writing
Check out some of my favorite children's books for music making in the classroom! Plus, I'll give lots of ideas on how to use them in lessons.
Have fun teaching toddlers body parts with these fun motor games and activities. Make learning body parts fun and memorable with songs, dances, and more!
5 Ways to Use I Know a Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello in the elementary music classroom. Want to incorporate more books into your music lessons but don't know how? Check out these ways to use my favorite book!
I’m sharing with you 10 scarf songs for preschool and kindergarten music time, perfect to share with your elementary music students and clients or during your next movement break with scarves on your early childhood music classes.
These sing a long books for circle time are great for whole group reads/sings. A perfect book list to engage children with books. Includes a printable list.
Do you have a child with a lot of energy? These movement books can be a lifesaver for little wiggle worms because they promote moving around while you read!
I know that I’ve been talking about books for the music classroom a lot recently so I thought I’d share some of my current favorites! If you saw my post from last week, I go
One of my favorite things about the Orff Schulwerk philosophy of teaching is the ability to go from something relatively simple to an experience that is complex and exciting. You start with a song, add in movement, add in new layers, add in an ostinato, include a game, move students […]
Have you ever noticed that music and literacy have such a strong connection? That might be odd to hear because usually it’s music and math. But just think about all the fun ways that music and lyrics play with sounds in words. It really is a fascinating idea and one that could compose another post ... Read More about Rhyming Books that You Can SING!
Teach children about Japan with these wonderful children's books! Great for an elementary school classroom or a home library.
Ten of our favorite singalong books that feature diverse characters, perfect for home or classroom use with toddlers and preschoolers.
Make sure you read through all these great Funny Picture Books before your next trip the library. Your kids are sure to chuckle when reading these!
A list of the best ESL songs for young learners, arranged by topic. Includes practical tips on how to teach ESL Songs to young learners.
A week of simple, easy activities for preschoolers inspired by the book Hug Machine by Scott Campbell for Kindness Week.
You can easily incorporate children's literature into the elementary music classroom and I especially love using children's books for movement exploration.
Books for elementary music? You can teach musical concepts in elementary music with books! In this post we have 9 book based lessons for elementary music!
I only recently learned about all of the wonderful children’s music by Hap Palmer. Hap Palmer and his huge collection of music is truly a gift to music educators! There are so many great songs of his I could share with you, but the one I wanted to make sure you know about is Scamper. ... Read More about Scamper by Hap Palmer
I am always looking for new books to add to my storytime events and to read at home. I found some top
These fun name activities for kids are the perfect way to work on recognizing, sequencing, and remembering the letters of a name.
Rhyming songs for kids are a double win! They are fun to sing and have tons of learning benefits, too. Here are our favorites!
These Children's Book Week activities will help foster a love of reading that could last a lifetime. We curated a list of ten of our all-time favorite children's book week activities for creative crafts, party ideas, and more to make reading super fun for kids of all ages!
Introduce your kids to great jazz legends and inspire them to create music of their own.
This is a totally fun book! I know that many students have the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It…” down pat before they even get to Kindergarten but not my students. I have a high population of English Language Learners (often called ELLs) and most from low income […]
Kids love these fun preschool rhyming songs. Perfect for circle time and transitions, these songs will help your kids hear and produce rhyming words. Are you looking for rhyming songs for your
Sweet Sounds - Quality Kodaly Resources for Elementary Music Educators
Check out the ultimate list of children's books for elementary music! From song stories to instrument exploration, there's something for everyone!
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These silly rhyming books for preschoolers feature your kids' names and pictures. Your kids will beg to read these fun lift-the-flap books over and over. What's better than silly rhyming
Name games for the first day in elementary music. Includes songs such as Hickety Tickety Bumblebee, Telephone Song, and Bounce High.
These printable song books can be used in the classroom while singing songs. They can also be added to a Listening Center with a recording of the
Sweet Sounds - Quality Kodaly Resources for Elementary Music Educators
Multicultural Children's Books based on famous songs: Picture books about famous songs; for Babies & Toddlers, Preschool, Elementary School; Ages 0 to 10
These fun name activities for kids are the perfect way to work on recognizing, sequencing, and remembering the letters of a name.
Music is such a fun topic that covers such a wide range of information. This book list has a little taste of almost everything and was so much fun to compile. In it you will find books that cover everything from the science of sound to the how different types of instruments are made and...Read More »
Storybooks are such a great way to tap into young students' creativity and imagination, create cross-curricular and real world connections to musical concepts, and provide windows and mirrors into students' own identities and others' in elementary music. Here are some of my favorite books for each grade level (it's definitely hard to narrow it down) that I would recommend every elementary music teacher get for their classrooms- if you don't have these already, add them to your wish list! This post contains affiliate links Kindergarten: Froggy Gets Dressed No book gets my Kindergartners laughing more than this one! I love using this book to add instrument timbres- here is a full blog post I wrote with the lesson plans I use. 1st grade: Nine-in-One, Grr! Grr! I love using this story with 1st grade to practice sol-mi singing and instrument playing, and it's a great way to introduce them to Hmong culture at the same time. The students love the story and go around singing the song for weeks afterwards! Here's the full lesson plan I use with the book. 2nd/ 3rd grade: My Family Plays Music This book is absolutely amazing for exploring different genres in an active and engaging way, and the 2nd-3rd grade age is perfect for this book. I've used this as sub plans before as well and it works great for that, so this set of lessons is very versatile! Here's the blog post with my full lesson plans. 4th/ 5th grade: Because This book is the perfect segue to songwriting, and/ or conversations about "why we musick", with upper elementary. Although students do a lot of composing in the younger grades, 4th and 5th graders really get into more melodic writing, so I love using this book to get students thinking of themselves as songwriters- reading and discussing the story first helps many of my students think more about creating truly musical melodies rather than just following a formula to put notes on a page (and it also happens to be a great way to quickly review orchestral instruments since they are pictured in the book). 6th grade: The Roots of Rap I don't read this book aloud to the class or anything, but I keep it in my classroom bookshelf and I *may or may not* strategically place it in a noticeable spot whenever my 6th graders are doing centers and picking books from the shelf- they never fail to get excited when they "discover" it and on multiple occasions I've had students run around the room showing it to their friends at other stations, and telling them to make sure to check it out when they get to the books. I also refer them to this book whenever they ask about a specific artist or a question about the history/ pillars of hip-hop, and I do pull it out to show them some specific pages with pictures of specific people etc when I am introducing our hip-hop unit. I have several children's books about hip-hop but this is the one my 6th graders love the most and don't find childish. Here is my blog post on my lessons to introduce hip-hop in elementary music. Of course there are SO MANY more books, especially for the younger grades, that I feel terrible about not mentioning because my students and I love them so much too! I have a lot more books for K-2 grades, complete with accompanying lesson plans, in this post. What are your favorite books to use with specific grade levels? I'd love to hear them in the comments, I'm always on the hunt for new ones to add to my list!
Introducing kids to wonderful music is easy with musical stories. After reading and listening to them see our list of places you can make your own music.
The skill of rhyming is so important for children in preschool and kindergarten! I love to read rhyming books to help children develop an ear for rhymes. This is the ultimate list of rhyming books! #rhyming #phonologicalawareness #booklist #booksforkids
Story time books to get kids moving and grooving during the read aloud.
Music is a great way to learn and have fun. This list of 20 picture books using song lyrics as stories is perfect for all ages.
