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MUSIC – Summer Reading Week 3 (29 June – 5 July)

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Welcome to Summer Reading, Week 3:  MUSIC!

  1. (Introduction) Begin your melody by listening to the  BrainPop Jr. “Musical Instruments” segment. Follow these instructions to find the video:
    1. Go to our PXES Databases Home Page as you have done in previous weeks.  The page is found here:  PXES Library Guide Home Page
    2. Choose Brain Pop Jr.
    3. Log in with the Username and Password.
    4. In the search box, enter “Musical Instruments.”
    5. Watch the video (4:29)
      • PreK-2:  Listen to learn the name of an instrument with strings, an instrument that you hit, and an instrument that you blow through.
      • Grades 3-5:  Listen for 3 instruments that you have never heard of before.

2.  (Read Aloud Picture Book) Next, listen to “The Man with the Violin” by Kathy Stinson.  It is based on a true story about one of the world’s most accomplished violin players, Joshua Bell.  Mr. Bell played a Stradivarius violin, a priceless instrument, in a Washington D.C. metro station.  He delivered a breathtaking performance, but no one knew it was him!  What do you think happened?  Make a prediction and then listen to the story to find out.

    1. Go to our PXES Databases Home Page, linked above.
    2. Choose Tumblebooks.
    3. Log in.
    4. In the search box, enter “The Man with the Violin.”
    5. Choose “Play Video” (7:42)

Was your prediction correct?  If you are curious, find out more about Mr. Bell and this experiment.  Many articles have been written about his subway performance.

3.  Listen to two more picture books, then listen to the music that inspired them.  Before listening to the books, ask yourself what it would be like to try to convey a song without music.  Could you put a song into a book format?  How would you do it? Why would you want to?

PreK-2:  Learn the words to Baby Beluga.  What do you learn about beluga whales by listening to this music?

Grades 3-5:  Writing Extension:  Think of an unusual animal and then write a lullaby about that animal.  Raffi wrote about a baby beluga whale.  Could you write about a baby wombat, a baby stork, a baby cheetah, or some other interesting animal?

4.  (Research) Continue your song by doing some music-themed reading from two of our reference collections. Go to the PXES Library Guide Home Page and choose Pebble Go (PreK-2) or World Book Kids (3-5).

  • PreK-Grade 2:  Go to the PebbleGo Biographies database.  Choose Musicians and Entertainers.  Then, read about two that interest you.  I recommend:
    • Yoyo Ma
    • Louis Armstrong
  • Grades 3-5:  Go to World Book Kids online.  Choose “Important People,” then “Musicians, Composers, & Singers.”  Read about two people who you have never heard of before.  Two of my favorites are:
    • Aretha Franklin
    • Paul Simon

5. Get moving: Go on a listening walk.  Slowly take a walk in your neighborhood, your building, or your apartment.  What do you hear?  Make a note or draw a simple picture each time you hear a new sound.  How many different sounds can you hear in five minutes?  In fifteen minutes?  Could you weave those sounds into a story of your own?

6.  A New Sound:  Enzinma Reinvents Beethoven  PreK-5: This activity is, in my opinion, the most exciting of the week. It is essential that our students see the world as open to their ideas, voices, experiences, and contributions.  Here is one example of a musician who studied the classics but has developed her own, completely unique style.  We don’t just play others’ music.  We can make our own! I hope you enjoy this video of violinist Enzinma playing her own interpretation of Beethoven Fifth Symphony.  Enzima plays Beethoven  

7.  (Research/Interview) Find out more from your own family.  Interview a few members of your family.  What are their favorite songs, bands, or styles of music?  Are those the same or different from yours?  Ask your parents to play music from when they were younger.  What does that music sound like?

Send a short (15 seconds or less) video over e-mail (betty.turpin@saschina.org) telling me what you learned about music in your family.   I will combine your short videos into a longer video to share with our summer reading group.  This will be an experiment, but we can do it!

8. Encore!!   If you enjoyed reading about music and listening to some music, you may wish to continue exploring with these titles:

SORA: 

  • Trombone Shorty by Troy Andrews (Jazz Trombone, Picture Book)
  • Dancing Hands by Margarita Engle (Piano, Picture Book)
  • The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Perez (Punk, Grades 4-6 Fiction)
  • Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan (Harmonica, Historical Fiction Gr. 5-8)

Tumblebooks:  Tumblebooks has an entire collection of stories with music as the theme.  Log on to Tumblebooks using the instructions in Activity #2.  Then, choose the “Storybooks” tab and scroll to the bottom for the “Music” category.

Don’t Forget:  Remember to adapt these activities to your own resources, languages, and children’s interests.  I hope that you have enjoyed our third week’s music theme.  Look for another collection of reading and activity suggestions next week.  I’d still love to hear from you or your children about how things are going and what you’d like to see in future weeks.

Your Friend in the Library, Miss Betty