Seven Spring Storybook Lessons:

1. Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Michael Rosen and Arthur Robins

• This storybook is great to teach: melody, instrument play, movement

1. Good News, Bad News by Jeff Mack

• This storybook is great to teach: melody

1. The Listening Walk by Paul Showers

• This storybook is great to teach: instrument play. Grab your worksheet here:

1. Hoppity Skip Little Chick by Jo Brown

• This storybook is great to teach: movement

1. Yellow Umbrella by Dong Il Sheen and Jae-Soo Liu

• This storybook is great to teach: melody

1. The Eensy-Weensy Spider by Mary Ann Hoberman

• This storybook is great to teach: high and low

1. Where There’s a Bear, There’s Trouble! by Michael Catchpool and Vanessa Cabban

• This storybook is great to teach: movement

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TRANSCRIPTION:

It's April, and that means your students are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and so are you. It's getting so close to the end of the school year. You know how that goes. Spring break is over and all of a sudden everybody's like, oh, the school year's over. And that also means you're probably seeing some interesting behaviors. I know that I was seeing some interesting behaviors even before spring break. So what are you the over it exhausted music teacher to do? Here's what I say. Read, read, read reading aloud to your kiddos can make them feel comfortable, distract them from any anxiety they may be feeling. You only have to watch their faces while you're reading to them to really understand exactly how they're feeling while you're reading to them. And it is good. It is calming to them. It helps them get through anxiety.

It's one of those things that if your kiddos are starting to just get a little bit too riled up, all you have to do is pull out a book and start reading. And even if you don't have a specific plan, hopefully you do because hopefully today I'm going to help you with that plan. But even if you don't have a plan, just look for the sound words and the movement words and if you don't know what those are, you can go to pretty much any of my blog posts and figure that out. My blog is@storiesthatsing.net slash blog and I talk about sound words and movement words. All you have to do is search for the storybook tips in my blog, but I will definitely link to the show notes as well. I have such special memories of my mom reading to me. She was the one who really helped me discover books and their ability to take you away someplace special, introduce you to people you may never have met and help you discover something new.

So I was with Devin and Taylor, these are my boys, and at the time they would have been 16 months old and pretty much a newborn. I mean, I started reading to my kiddos when they were baby babies to the point that they were not even able to sit up. My, my bigger guy was able to sit up. Devin was able to sit up, but Taylor wasn't. I mean, I'm telling you, he was like a couple weeks old when I started reading to him and I did the same with Devin. And so we're lying on the floor on a blanket, maybe a quilt, and the sun is streaming in. It is hot. I've got the air conditioning just cranked and it is hot and it's the middle of the day because you know, we just kind of, anytime I was like, I wanna read some stories, we would go ahead and do that and it would give us a little something to do.

Plus it was just the most amazing experience. So we're laying on our backs and Taylor is just kind of hanging and, and he is enraptured and Devin too. I mean at 16 months old there is Devin just sitting there captivated by the story. Now I'm gonna tell you, I got really into it. I've got my voices going on and you know, I'm doing my high voice and my low voice and I'm doing all of my vocal exploration. So of course that helps. But they were just so captivated. So Devin was a struggling reader growing up, which broke my heart because I was like, oh my gosh, I read to him all the time and he really didn't discover the joy of reading until he started reading the Harry Potter series. Now he started reading it before I did. So once he started talking about it, I was like, mind blown.

He's in third grade and he's finally starting to read and he was so excited about this series to the point that we started a tradition of when the movies came out. Now they were bigger by this point. They were like teenagers. We would go with all of their friends on the Thursday midnight release and all of the moms and it was the most amazing thing because the moms of their closest friends were also my closest friends. So I just had the best time with that. Devin is still an avid reader and now he's also a writer. He writes science fiction fantasy novels and he's not published yet, but I will let you know when that happens. So even though he took his time being able to read, he just loves to read and he's so cute because he saves all of his books and someday he wants a library in his house with floor ceiling books like the, the kind of library that you would see in a castle or something.

That is his dream. He wants, I mean he saves all of his books. It is the cutest thing. And don't tell him I'm saying he's cute cuz he is 29. He would not appreciate that. But anyways, so I very early on, this was before I started teaching because I came into teaching a little bit later in life and not, not until I was in my thirties and I just really rediscovered a joy of reading through my kiddos. So I love to share story books in my classroom as you know. I mean I am the stories that Sing Lady of course. And one of my favorite times to share story books is in the spring. I love to bring out all of the cute little bunny books and the chick books and the um, the picnicking books. And I've got this really wonderful one that actually, um, lale, I can't remember her handle on Instagram, but we just did a giveaway, a spring giveaway a couple of weeks ago if you missed it.

I'm so sorry. We had seven music teachers and we gave away seven different spring lesson plans. Now you should keep your eye open for more of those because it was so successful and people were so excited about it that we are definitely gonna do it again. But anyway, Lale was talking about the listening walk, which is a favorite of mine as well. And it was funny because, and it was funny because some of the things that she does, I do as well with the listening walk. But I want to go ahead and share with you seven spring storybook lessons. We're calling this the spring storybook share. And you may hear me turning pages, so that might be a little random, but we're gonna start with Little Rabbit fufu. And you may know the I'm paging through my books. If you're hearing weirdness, um, you may know, um, little bunny fufu, I don't know which way you know it as, but I know it as little rap. I know I learned the song as Little Bunny fufu, you know, little bon fu fu hopping through the floor, scooping up the field mic son popping him on the head, damn came the good fairy and she said, little bon fufu, I don't wanna see you scooping up the field. My son popping him on the head. I'll give you three chances and then I'm gonna turn you into a goon.

And that's exactly how I sing it with my kiddos and they love it and they love to do the two. So that's kind of fun. Um, so this is Little Rabbit fufu. So what I've had to start doing is, this is by Michael Rosen and Arthur Robbins or Robens maybe. And I've had to start calling it Little Rabbit Fufu because I love to read this story book. This is just the most adorable storybook. And the rabbit is kind of like, he's not so cute. He kind of looks like an evil rabbit, but he's also fun and there are some crows that look down on him and he's got a motor bike. So it's little bunny fufu riding through the forest, scooping up the field mice and bopping him on the head. And he's got this ginormous red hammer that he's using down came the good fairy and she said, little rabbit fufu, I don't like your attitude.

Scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head. I'm gonna give you three chances to change and if you don't, I'm gonna turn you into a goon. So that is a super fun book. And the field Mouse, oh he, the next one is Wrigley Worms and it is hysterical because he makes one of the worms look like an accordion. And a couple of the worms have these like bumps on their heads. Um, so it's pretty cute. And then the fairy comes back down and this time she comes down with her Mary Poppins umbrella and then he scoops up the tigers. I mean, it is adorable. So I love to use this storybook for up and down and I love to use it for melody, for singing for instrument play because we will use our, um, damn came the Good Fairy, we'll do AGL sando on our Glock and spiels.

And then, um, when little bunny fufu goes hopping, then we use our hands together mallet skills. So that is the first one. The second one, again, I'm paging through my books, so if you hear me is called Good News, bad News. And this one only has two words in it, good news and bad news. And this one's by Jeff Mack and it is the adventure of a rabbit who just wants to take his friend rat on a picnic. So he, uh, they go through, it's a really funny adventure, it's hilarious. And the rabbit, it ends up getting himself into more and more trouble with the rat. So, um, it's good news and he's got a picnic basket and rat looks at him and it starts raining in rats like bad news and rabbits like good news, I've got an umbrella. And then rats got goes, bad news, the umbrella flew away and it flew him away too.

Good news, the umbrella fell into a tree and the tree is sheltering him from the storm. So it goes on like that. And then, um, at the end they ran in, run into some bees and they run into a cave. I'm doing a picture walk here. If you don't know what that is, that is where you look at the pictures and you just summarize as you go. Great strategy, great modeling for your kiddos. Um, and they get struck by lightning and the the, um, they run into a bear in the cave and then they get struck by lightning and um, the rat is like bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad news and the rabbit gets all sad. So at the end, rat is mad at rabbit and I think it's a rat. It doesn't look like a mouse to me. I mean I guess it could be a mouse, you could call it whatever you want to cuz I know sometimes rat has a bad connotation, but um, to me it looks like a rat.

Anyway. So at the end, rabbit, um, is sad because he um, because uh, rat is mad at him. And so Rat brings the picnic basket over. So what I like to do with this storybook is I like to use melody. Um, we do good news, bad news. So you can hear I've got the major and the minor going on and we love to sing it. We'll, we'll read it through first, then we'll sing it and we can use major and minor. There's a composition element to this storybook. And this storybook is one of the ones that I have in my stories that sing resource book. If you don't have that when you can find it on my website shop stories that sing.net/shop. And it's actually under stories that sing beautiful bright pinks and turquoises and that sort of thing. So can't miss it. The next one is called The Listening Walk by Paul Showers.

And you will find, by the way, my Amazon affiliate links in the show notes to all of these story books. So if you want to quickly and easily find them, you can do that. So this is about a little girl who, um, takes her dog major and her father and they go for a walk and they walk all around the neighborhood and she likes to listen to the different sounds. And um, she listens to major's toenails, they go, TWI twi twi twi, her father's shoes, go DOP do, DOP do. And then there's a lawnmower it goes.

And then there are sprinklers and then there are cars. Some cars go, Hmm, some cars go Brca, brca, brca br up, some cars go and the brakes go, eh. So she goes through and she describes all these different sounds. So I love to have my students echo. So as we're reading through, I'll be like, TWI, twi twi twi. And they'll go Twi, twi twi twi. And we will echo back and forth. So we get a vocal exploration going on. Um, there is also an instrument play element to this one. You can talk about loud and soft. You can talk about high and low. You can do some listening skills. You can do composition. So one of the things that Lale and I both do is I like, after I have read this and we've explored it with instruments, I love to take my students on a listening walk and they get to write down three things they hear and then they, and I've got a whole like sheet that hopefully I'll remember to put that a link to that in the show notes.

Um, so I've got this whole sheet that they fill out and then they go back in and they group up with three other people. So it's a group of four or if you know, in my case, usually I'll group them up in their threes because they're in groups of three. If you have listened to my other podcasts, you already know that. Um, so that is what they will do and they will get together and they'll create sentences where they create their own sound words for whatever they hear and then they create some sentences which translate into musical phrases. So it is a pretty cool activity. The next one is called Hop Skip Little Chick. And this is about a little chick who's waiting for his brothers and sisters to hatch. And his mom is sitting on the eggs and she's like, I just need to keep these warm a little bit longer, but I'm sure you can find somebody to play with in the barnyard.

So he goes out and he skips and then he runs and then he trips, he goes faster, faster. He skids, he bounces, boying, boying and all of there are sound words in here too, Wiz and yahoo and e and boying, boying, boying. So you can do vocal exploration with this one. You can do movement, you can do instrument play fast and slow and also mallet skills with this one. The next one is called yellow umbrella and I love this one so much. It's a discovery that I've had for literally years and only recently was I able to develop a lesson plan for it. So the illustrations are all painted. Um, it is called the yellow Umbrella. Oh so sorry, not the yellow umbrella. Just yellow umbrella by J Sue Lu I think is how you pronounce it. But I'm not a hundred percent sure if you know, message me and let me know.

So there's just illustrations, it's all painted and they're beautiful like pastel colors, but the umbrellas are all like bright colors and you get more and more umbrellas as you go. So the cool thing about this book is that in the back there is a song that they composed and then there's also a CD and you play the CD while you're reading the story and it is super cool. What I like to do with this one is you've got melody because you can sing the song. You've got the different themes of the colors of umbrella. You've got the rain, you can create a rainstorm. If you don't know how to do that, reach out. I will help you. Um, by the way, when I say reach out jeanette@storiesthatsing.net, um, you can talk about loud and soft and you can do some instrument play with this one.

The next one is my favorite version of the sk spider and this one is adapted by Mary Ann Hoberman. So there are many, many versions of this song in storybook form, but this one is my favorite because the spider goes on this grand adventure. First he climbs up the water spout, but then he takes a walk and he skips out to play. He swims with a frog, he the frog is like no spiders in my pool. Then um, he goes and finds a praying mantis and they do some marching and then um, he goes back and he's like, mama, I need a band-aid and he needs band-aids for his knees cuz he fell down. I mean it is precious. Some of the things I like to do with this one, high and low going up the scale, going down the scale. Then there's orff instrument play.

You can do some rhythm instrument play and of course melody because you can sing through the whole song the first time around. You could even create some great orff accompaniment to go with your singing. Then one of the things I like to do is I like to make the spider bigger and bigger. So it goes like this. The ancy winy spider went up the water spout. Then the next time it's the not so bitsy spider went up the water spout and I get louder as we go. The great big spider went up the water spout. So we do three versions of the [inaudible] spider and that one is fun to do high and low. It is fun to do loud and soft with. I mean there are so many applications to this storybook. The final storybook is called where there's a bear, there's trouble and this is all about a bear.

It's by Michael Catch pull. And bear is taking a nap in the beautiful flowers and he sees a yellow honeybee and he's like, I'm gonna follow this honeybee as quietly as can be. And the ba the bee is like where there's a bear, there's trouble. I'll buzz off home as quickly as can be. So you hear quickly and you hear quietly. We've got fast and slow, we've got loud and soft and it goes Booz Booz growl grol. So that is a good repeating pattern as quietly as can be is a good repeating pattern. And as they are walking along, as as the bear is following the bee, all of the other animals start following him cuz they're like, Ooh, the bear is gonna have ripe berries is what the geese say. And Bbu grow, growl honk hok sh So you keep adding on sounds. We've got a cumulative story here.

Um, so the greedy geese and then the three shy mice and then they keep adding on and then they get to the honeybees hive and a hundred yellow bees buzz out and they're like, oh no. And they all run back home and kind of like brown bear, brown bear where um, he drops off the mice and then he um, drops off the geese, he crashes into the geese and at the end the yellow bee is like, I knew there'd be trouble. So that is just the cutest story that has movement in it. As I said before, fast and slow, loud and soft. There's vocal exploration cuz you know you've got the honking geese and you've got the buzzing bee and all that good stuff. You've got those repeating patterns that you can add either, um, some mallet skills to or you can add some instrument play to.

I mean the list goes on and on. So I hope that you have found some great ideas. Spring is such an amazing, wonderful time to add some storybook lessons to your curriculum because not only are they so much fun to read, but there's so much fun to explore with your students, all those baby animals and the rainstorms and the picnics and all the wonderful amazing things about Spring. Can you tell I like spring . So now if you need some extra help or suggestions on how to use storybooks in your music classroom, you have a couple of choices. First of all, you can reach out to me, jeanette@storiesthatsing.net and ask me all the questions. I am so happy to answer questions. The other thing you can do is if you want a good place to find a course on how to add music skills using storybook lessons, the best way to do that is to go on over to the Happy Music Teacher Academy and join there to get your courses.

So you've got Simply Music skills, which will teach you how to add music skills, all the elements of music using storybook lessons. And then you've got Simply Literacy skills, which gives you a way to seamlessly add literacy skills to your music classroom in like the easiest way possible. They are amazing courses if I do say so myself. And if you would like to hear more or read more about them, all you need to go do is go to stories that sing.net/join the Happy Music Teacher Academy. That will be linked in the show notes as well. But again, that is stories that sing.net/join the Happy Music Teacher Academy. So let's go backwards through our seven books. We've got Where There's a Bear, there's Trouble by Michael Kapo, Michael Catch Pool Spider by Maryanne Hoberman yellow umbrella by Jay Sulu, hippity Hop Little Chick by Joe Brown, the Listening Walk by Paul Showers Good News, bad News by Jeff Mack and Little Rabbit Fufu by Michael Rosen and Arthur Robens.

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.