Discover how picture books can transform your music classroom into an engaging and interactive learning space. Explore 9 dynamic ways to use storybooks to teach music skills.

1. Melody/Singing Technique: Learn how to extract repeating phrases from storybooks and transform them into catchy melodies. Understand how to choose appropriate rhythms and melodies that align with the story's mood, fostering an engaging and musical atmosphere.

2. Mallet Technique: Explore the world of mallet instruments and how to incorporate them into story-based music lessons. Discover techniques such as alternating hands, hand together, or creating contrasting sounds to bring the story to life through Orff instruments.

3. Timbre Exploration: Dive into the realm of timbre and provide students with opportunities to experiment with various instruments. Encourage them to discover different sounds using the same instrument or associate specific sound words from the storybooks with different timbres.

4. Movement Integration: Explore the connection between movement and music through storybooks. Select movement words from the books and guide students in embodying those words through expressive movements, enhancing their kinesthetic understanding of music.

5. Instrument Skills Development: Integrate storybooks into instrumental lessons by using them as a framework. Design activities where students play instruments in response to specific events or characters in the story, fostering active listening and instrumental skill development.

6. Dynamics: Use storybooks to teach dynamics, the varying levels of volume in music. Explore how different events or emotions in the story can be represented through changes in volume, allowing students to understand and interpret musical dynamics.

7. High & Low: Introduce the concept of pitch by relating it to the storybooks. Use high and low voices or instruments to demonstrate the difference in pitch based on the events or characters in the story, enabling students to grasp the concept of musical pitch.

8. Up & Down: Connect the idea of melodic movement with the storybooks. Explore melodies that move upward or downward based on the story's narrative or character actions, fostering a deeper understanding of melodic direction.

9. Rhythm: Teach rhythm through storybooks by identifying rhythmic patterns in the text. Explore how the rhythm of the words can be translated into body percussion or instrument playing, providing a fun and interactive way for students to develop their rhythmic skills.

Need extra help developing storybook lessons?  Look no further than my course, Simply Music Skills.  It’s discounted by over 80% through June 30th!

The Happy Music Teacher Academy is now open for new members! Learn more and join here: https://storiesthatsing.net/jointhehappymusicteacheracademy 

Send me an email: jeanette@storiesthatsing.net

Visit my website: https://storiesthatsing.net/ 

Sign up for my newsletter and receive THREE FREE Lesson Plans: https://storiesthatsing.net/lessonplansampler 

Join my Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/themusicteachergroup

Follow me on IG: @thehappymusicteacher

Follow me on TikTok: @thehappymusicteacher 

You know, I'm the stories that Sing Lady, and that means I'm here to answer all of your questions about how to integrate picture books into your elementary music classroom. So you might have questions like, what kinds of books do I read? Or maybe you're asking what lesson topics do I pair with those books?

Or you might be asking what kind of lesson ideas can I use to tie books into my normal elements of music lessons? Well, Whatever you're asking, you are in luck because this month until June 30th, I am holding a flash sale on my course. Simply Music Skills. This course is designed to teach you what storybooks to use in your music classroom and how to use them.

To teach music skills and so much more, and I am so excited because this course is on sale for over 80% off. You can take advantage of this special offer of over 80% off by going to stories that sing.net/simply music skills. Be sure you get to that link as soon as possible so you can take advantage of this special offer.

This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. Better today. Better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there. Explore more podcasts at www.teachbetterpodcastnetwork.com. Now let's get on the episode. It's Happy music teacher.

Are you an elementary music teacher who's frustrated and overwhelmed? I'm Jeanette Shorty, A happy music teacher who loves teaching every day. But it wasn't long ago. I was in your shoes. Join me Wednesdays to help you find happy in your music classroom. You know, story books seem like something fun to add to your daily activities, right?

I mean, you've probably got a whole bunch of books and your kiddos love listening to all those silly stories about dogs and chicks and you know, barn animals and those sorts of things. But the problem is, How can you use storybooks to actually teach music skills? Well, It's pretty easy, and today I'm going to teach you nine ways that you can use picture books to teach music skills.

Basically the elements of music. I'm gonna tell you that for me. Story books are one of the best ways to teach music skills, especially to your little ones. In fact, I have an entire curriculum, I mean, almost every single week when I'm teaching my little, say kindergarten, all the way through second or sometimes even third grade, we are introducing a concept or delving further into a concept using a picture book.

Or several picture books. I mean, I've got a whole bunch of picture books that teach dynamics, and I've got a whole bunch of picture books that teach my students how to use instruments the right way. So believe it or not, this is one of the best ways to teach music skills. And what's so great about it is that.

They keep your students more engaged. They love listening when you're reading aloud to them. And if you're not sure about that, the next time you're reading to your kiddos, watch their little faces. Just light up teaching music skills. Using story books is also. A great way to help your students practice their listening skills.

This is a win-win because as you know, every musician needs to have fantastic listening skills. It's also a great way to help manage behavior because students love to play instruments. They love to sing. And they're gonna be super quiet and focused while you're reading, because they're waiting for their turn to play their instrument or sing their tiny melody.

Using a storybook is also going to give you an organic structure, so if you're like me and you're not a very structured person, this gives you a plan to follow because you're gonna follow the plan of what's happening in the story. And that's gonna mean less time for lesson planning. And I'm gonna tell you right now that yes, I just said they're great for littles, but I really also use them fairly often.

For my bigger kids, I would say we do something with a storybook at least once a month with my fourth and fifth graders. So, They, they're just the best it. I mean, even your big kids are gonna be like so captivated every time you're reading them a story. They just love it. So now you know why you should include story books, but let's talk about what to teach.

There are so many skills you can teach using picture books. So today you're gonna learn nine different ways that you can teach music skills. Using storybook lessons. Number one, melody or singing. So you've probably seen this technique many times before. If a story has a repeating pattern, you can use it to teach your students to sing.

So these are the steps that I like to follow when I'm creating what I call a tiny melody, which is a melody based on the repeating pattern in a storybook. For example, in the storybook, will you be my friend, the Adventures of Corey. There is a repeating pattern. Will you be my friend? And that, excuse me, if it's not totally in tune because it's entirely possible.

I just kind of made, I know that's the right melody, but it's probably not in the right keys. So, Please excuse if you have perfect catch. Um, so these are the steps you're going to use to create a tiny melody. Number one, you're gonna look for a phrase or sentence that repeats over and over in the story.

It should not happen just once or twice. It should happen on almost every page. Number two, you're gonna read it aloud to see what rhythm to use. Number three, you're gonna decide on the mood of the story. So what I mean by that is should you write your melody in a minor key or a major key? Should it be a fast melody or a slow melody?

Those types of things. And then you're gonna write the melody that fits the mood of the story. So if the story is, for example, about a little bird who's lost his mommy, then you might wanna use a minor key. Or if we're talking, for example, in the storybook, will you be my friend, the Adventures of Corey. We are talking a minor key because.

These kids are having trouble. These are students with exceptionalities and they're having trouble making friends. So you know you wanna fit the melody along with the mood of the story. Method. Number two, you can use a storybook to teach mallet skills. Is that so cool? I mean, that is one of my favorite ways to teach mallet skills.

And what I mean by that is how to hold the mallet and mallets and how to. Play the instrument, where to play it in the center of the keys and how to get the most beautiful sound by bouncing. And then you can also go into dynamics, that sort of thing. But my favorite thing to teach besides how to hold the mallets is to use alternating hands for something like the word run and hands together.

For the word leap or the word jump, so you get to teach your littles. This is a great activity for like kindergarten when you're first teaching them how to use the mallets and how to play on the ORP instruments. And I love to use my mallet hold like this pinch. Wrap. Quack, quack, quack. Use your wings to flat, flat flap.

And then I tell my students that at the end of their mallet, there has to be a little tail. So we'll talk about the tail and then we'll be like, shake your ducky tail. And we will walk around pretending to hold our mallets. The proper way. This is in kindergarten, not in fifth grade. And we'll walk around pretending to hold our mallets in the right way and shaking our ducky tails.

And I put on some music and it's like the coolest thing ever. And then what I like to do is I like to put on music and I'll say, okay, boys and girls, we are. Jogging. I never used the word running in my classroom. And when we're jogging, we notice that our feet are moving one at a time, and we call those alternating.

And then we talk about leaping or jumping, and I might use different words. For leap or jump, you know, any, any synonyms for leap or jump that your kinders are working on. And we'll talk about how when you leap or jump, your feet are moving together and we call that feet together. And then I get to tie it into hands together, an alternating hand.

So anytime there is a character in there, That is leaping or running or jumping or whatever. You can use those types of books to teach those mallet skills. Method number three, Tam. One really great way to teach tamer to your students is to let them experiment with just one instrument. So I am holding a tub bono in my hand and I am going to show you some different tam.

So if we tap our fingers, we get this tamper. If we tap just art, can you hear it echoing If we tap just our fingertips in the center. We get that sound. If we use a cup hand, we get that sound, which is not too different on this instrument. Some instruments, it's going to be a little different. If we tap on the rim of the instrument, we get a much higher sound.

If we tap on the side, we get this sound. If we screechy scratch, we get that kind of sound. If we rub, we get that sound. So you get the idea. So what I like to do is I like my kiddos to go ahead and explore the different instrument sounds. Now my littles, I may explore with them. So I play, they play, I play, they play that sort of thing.

And then from there we get to talk about using that storybook and. For example, in the storybook drum dream girl, there are lo booming loud, uh, congas. I think it's booming loud congas and um, silvery moon, bright timbales. So there's all these different great sound words. And what I like to do is I like to explore different tams using just a drum.

So that's one method. A second method when you're exploring tamber is you can give, for example, everyone, um, gets, uh, like split your room into three sections and you give out rhythm sticks and tambourines. And frame drums or hand drums, you may call them and you explore like the different sound words. So for example, on boom, boom, boom, your students get to decide which instrument works best for that.

So probably if you've got frame drums or some kind of drums that you've passed out, they are going to choose the drum for boom, boom, boom. Whereas silvery moon, bright timbales, they may choose the tambourine because that sounds very silvery, moon bright. Or they may surprise you and choose something completely different and you can totally do the choosing yourself.

But the more decisions you leave up to your students. The better off you're gonna be because they like to have those choices. The fourth way that you can use storybooks to teach music skills is movement. So if you have movement words in your story, and a movement word is anytime you can imagine a movement, when you hear the word.

That is a movement word. So for example, skip or run or jump, those are easy ones, or leap or hop. Any of those types of movements can be used as part of your music instruction. And it's also a really great way for your students to learn new words. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna find those words, and either you can find them ahead of time and put them into a PowerPoint.

Or if you wanna do a picture walk, which means you turn the pictures and find the words, you and your students can find those words together if you have the time to do that, and write them down on the board. Or you can print them out on flashcards, which is another really great thing to do. And then you're gonna pick some music that fits the theme of the story.

For example, if the story is in a barnyard, really that fits. The setting of the story. If the story is in a barnyard, then you might want to pick some, you know, funky, uh, farm music or some ma make it instrumental because you don't want any words cuz that will interfere with what you're doing in the activity.

And you show those students the words one by one. They get to read them, you show them, and. Let me back up just a second. So when you show them the word, you're going to either model the movement, if you've got really littles, like pre-K kindergartens, sometimes even first grade, or with your slightly bigger kids, like maybe your second and third graders.

I have done these types of activities, even with fourth graders. Then what you're gonna do is you're going to have them come up with the movement. So, and I try to tell my students not to look around and find anybody else's type of movement to, but to create their own movement. So you show them the word.

You read the word, they echo the word. That's good for their literacy skills. To read that word and to echo it. And then you model the movement or they do the movement, and that's how that works. So that is a great way to include movement Now. The fifth way that you can use storybooks in your classroom to teach music skills is to teach instrument skills.

So let's take the storybook wet dog by Aise Broach. That storybook has several repeating patterns in it, and they don't really lend themselves well to a tiny melody, but they do lend themselves well. To some instrument place. So there's shaky shake, shaky shake, shake. And there's also Pata Pat. Pata. Pat, pat.

So you can teach so, so when I use instruments in a storybook, I take that opportunity. To either introduce how to play the instruments or to review how to play the instruments. So for example, I'm gonna talk about how to hold the instruments, the best way to make the sound, and when you make that sound, how to play it loud, how to play it soft, et cetera.

So I'm gonna take that opportunity. Before we go ahead and play to review those instrument skills and then while they're playing, so for example, on Shaky shake, shaky shake, shake is one of the repeating patterns. And I will be watching, observing to see which of my students are playing those instruments well and which of them are holding correctly and that sort of thing.

And then we'll do the same with our frame drums on Pata, pat, Pata, pat, pat, because that's one of the. Other repeating patterns in that storybook. So you kind of see how that works. The sixth way that you can use storybooks to teach music skills is to use dynamics. So think any type of sound word that has like loud sound in your head, or a soft sound in your head.

Or maybe it's one of those things that really lends itself well to a crescendo or a day crescendo. You can use those types of things to teach dynamics, and when I'm teaching dynamics, I'm not just teaching the definition of the word. I'm also teaching my students how to play loudly and softly on the ORP instruments or how to play loudly or softly on the drums.

So I tell them about bouncing low when they're. Playing softly and bouncing high. I say to them, we are not banging. That is not how we make a louder sound. We make a louder sound by bouncing higher, and that's how we do that. Number seven, the seventh way that you can. Use storybooks to teach basic music skills is high and low.

So when you're teaching high and low, you can talk about words that mean high and low. For example, in the storybook copy, skip Little Chick by Joe Brown. There are tons and tons of sound words. So there's Wiz and Wiz to me. Sounds high. So you could use like a tambourine. Or you could use a slide whistle, something like that.

Um, you've got rouge and to me that sounds low. So you've got vocal exploration opportunities there, but you also have the opportunity to talk about low and high. You've got things like, And boying, boying, boying. So any of those sound words can be used to teach your students about high and low, about instruments that H sound high and low, and about how to make their voice sound high and low because those are difficult concepts.

Tricky concepts, especially for your littles. The next method of using storybooks kind of goes hand in hand with high and low, and that is up and down. So I love to use Artie ADA's lesson plan for morr and morr. If you don't know that storybook, it is phenomenal. My students always love it. It is always a favorite because not only can you use it to teach high and low, but you can also use it to teach dynamics because in the storybook.

The father and the mother and the 17 brothers and sisters, and then the policemen all tell morr to be quiet. And they say it like this, Morr be quiet. And so you see, and then Morr starts singing at the top of the stairs. And when he's singing, he's singing. Clang, clang, battle. Be clang, clang, rattle, bing, bang.

Gonna make my noise all day. Clang, clang, rattle, bing bang. Gonna make my noise all day. And that is rd m's. Rhythm. You may have your own, not her rhythm, sorry. Her, um, her melody and. In the storybook, you can see there's these music notes and the music notes start out with just like a few of them, and then there gets to be more and more and more.

So you can talk about dynamics that way. But you can also talk about up and down, because Mortimer's father goes, oh no, his mother goes up the stairs and then down, down, down, down, down. So, so, and then the. Dad goes up and down the stairs, the 17 brothers and sisters go up and down the stairs, and then the policemen go up and down the stairs.

So you can use that storybook to teach going from low to high and from high to low, either with a slide whistle or with any of your orff instruments. And I'm gonna tell you that even my fifth graders sometimes they understand where low is and they understand where high is, but they can't remember.

Where to start. So that's a really good skill for all of your kiddos in all of your grade levels. Number nine, the ninth way, and I am sure you can come up with more, but these are my nine. I love to use storybooks to teach rhythm. So if we take that same example, wet dog, shaky shake, shaky shake, shake. We have shaky shake.

Shaky shake, shake. And we have Pata Pat, Pata, pat, pat. So we have T tee ta, T tee ta. And so you can use stick notation or you can use regular notation, or you don't even have to use any notation at all, but. That way your students get familiar. I like to show them those rhythms so they get familiar with hearing them and seeing them, because you may or may not know this, but.

The very first way that children learn is through sound and imitation. So think about a baby. When a baby starts doing those, like,

you know, they, they do all those cute little sounds. What they're doing is they're imitating the highs and lows, the variances of your speech, and they are teaching themselves how to speak so humans. Learn how to speak from imitation. And then, and they also learn how to sing from imitation. So if you have a fabulous singing voice, then your students are naturally going to be better singers then if you don't have such a great singing voice.

And that doesn't mean that you can't teach them to be beautiful singers. But what you wanna do is make sure that they have lots of models who are good singers. So make sure that your students, one of the reasons that we like our students to sing on their own is because we want to make sure that they're hearing those good singing models and imitating those good singing models.

So I digress, but I think that's important information in case you don't know it. And then from the imitation of the. Speaking and the listening and learning that way, that is how they learn to read. And reading is a difficult, even reading words is a very difficult thing for the brain. Our brains are not designed.

I know this is gonna come as a shock to you unless you've done some of the studying that I have. Our brains are not designed to learn to read words. Our brains are designed to learn by listening and modeling back. So reading is a complicated process for our students, and when you add on to that note reading, it's even more complicated.

So the more you can do to get them listening before you put those. Notes in front of them, the better off you are. And what I like to recommend is let them listen. Like kindergarten, you do a lot of listening. And then I don't really do a lot of rhythm reading until we start, and everybody may have a different opinion on this, but I don't do a lot of rhythm reading until we start into first grade.

And what I'll do is I'll just show them those rhythms and we'll talk about those rhythms and we'll move them and say them and play them. But we won't actually start reading them until. First grade and usually at least through the first quarter of first grade. So anyway, you've got your rhythms so, so.

Pata. Pat, Pata. Pat, pat. And shaky. Shake. Shaky, shake, shake. And I use this activity in second grade with my students. I'll read the storybook in first grade and then we'll start using the rhythms in second grade. And then there's shoe go on, now shoe. So there are two different rhythms in there. And any.

Rhythmic sounds that you have in your storybook are going to be a great way to help your students learn those rhythms. So storybooks are just a phenomenal way to give your students like that more active kinesthetic learning experience. And it also gives your lesson the structure that you might be looking for.

So I'd love to hear what skills you teach using storybooks, and you can send me your ideas along with your favorite story books at Jeanette, stories that sing.net. Or you can post in my private Facebook group that is called the Music Teacher Group. If you got some great tips and tidbits that are going to help you become a happy music teacher, I would be so thankful if you'd leave me a review.

Thanks so much for your time. Well, that's all I have for you today, but before I go, let me remind you. Keep learning, keep growing and keep being fabulous. You.