DIY "Peter And the Wolf" - Characters with Instruments

Who doesn't love "Peter and the Wolf" by Sergei Prokofiev? The melodies, instruments, story, etc....
Well, you can create your own Peter And the Wolf-type activity at home with a favorite story of your choosing.  All you need is a favorite book, some various instruments and some kids!
We had a lot of fun with this, hopefully you can too!

I chose a story that was simple, had a few re-appearing characters and was already a well-known story to my kiddos..... "The Little Mouse, The Red-Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear" by Don and Audrey Wood.

They love this story and it leant itself easily to 3 characters who would each get an instrument sound: the mouse, the strawberry and the bear.... and since I had 2 boys participating in this and one would be upset if he didn't have as many as his brother, I also stuck in the page turn as needing an instrument.

First, I printed out a sheet with each "character" (again, pics from a google image search. And yes, I am STILL out of my color ink cartridge!)

Next, I had the kiddos go and gather instruments.

They chose which instruments should be assigned to which characters (It was fun to see which instruments they picked for each one; the drum went fairly easily to the "Big Hungry Bear").

We practiced playing each instrument when the character's name was said before starting the book.

Then, the performance began with a musical introduction (which was incredibly loud and I'm amazed it didn't wake up little brother).

We read through the story once (with me helping them with extra emphasis on particular words and waiting for them to remember which instrument was what), then finished with an exciting musical finale where they all played as loudly as possible.

We went through it again under the instructions that they had to remember to use their instrument on their own, and by this time, they were pro's! :-)

They were uber excited about this and wanted to try it again with "Peter Pan" - another favorite - which has many more characters, so we recruited more instruments and went to round 2, which was a little harder to keep track of, but still lots of fun.

This was great for more opportunities to use instruments, matching instrument sounds with character-types,  practicing listening and remembering skills, and a great, user-friendly connection to a great piece of music - since you can remind them of how Prokofiev used different instruments for his characters in his musical tale,  Peter and the Wolf.

We may try this again this week with "Where the Wild Things Are" since especially that middle "rumpus" section would work well for some instrumental improvising. :-)

What other stories would you use?

Have fun!

"Pete the Cat" - Song and Activity

I, for one, think there is a shortage of fun song-books out there.... But, I'm glad this one is around!
"Pete the Cat - I Love My White Shoes"  by Eric Litwin (Ill. James Dean) has been around for a few years, but I'm just finding it now... takes me a while.

The illustrations are simple, but effective. The song also, is simple and effective to get you and your kids singing. It's a fun, silly little melody about a cat's shoes that start out white and change color throughout the day as he gets stuck in some colorful stuff.
I hope your library has a few copies of this so that you can pick one up and give it a try!

Once you've got your hands on the book, go to this site from the publisher to hear the song and the story being read. Once you've got it in your head, read/sing the book to your kiddos - with a cool groove, of course. :-)


We had lots of fun with the story and song.
They especially liked making sound effects for the wet, squishy shoes. :-)

Then, we colored our own shoes and sang about them. No, not our real shoes, silly.  Just paper ones.

If you'd like to join in the fun, find a black and white printable image of a shoe online, print out a few pairs and have kids color or paint them.

K wanted his to be green, so we figured that he got stuck in a pile of mushy peas (ick).
J wanted his to be gray, so for lack of a better option, we figured he got stuck in a pile of fire ashes (better option, anyone?).
Then K wanted to make another pair and just call them "Cool Scary Star Wars Shoes."
So, we had fun singing about our shoes (I colored a pink pair!), including the Star Wars shoes.

Give the book a try, even if you don't like cats! It's fun to sing about shoes!

Rhythmic Reading

A simple and fun way to incorporate rhythm into your child's body is to read stories that rhyme to your kiddo... and since it's pretty hard to get away from books that rhyme, this should be easy!

Some stories work better than others. Today, we did this with an old favorite, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Bill Martin/Eric Carle.

Some great books for rhythmic reading that we've used:
"Jamberry" by Bruce Degen

"Circus Parade" by Harriet Ziefert

Also, any collection of Mother Goose Rhymes are great too. Scholastic has a series out of themed Mother Goose Rhymes. We have the colors-themed one below, which is great!

But, again, rhyming books are everywhere!

Some guidelines:
-Chant the lines as appropriate - incorporating strong and weak beats (i.e. LITTLE boy BLUE come BLOW your HORN...).
-Use different pitches in your voice - highs, lows and in betweens as fits your story or rhyme.
    For example.... in "Brown Bear..."  I usually alternate between high- and low-pitch voices for the    various animals as I think they would talk. :-)
-If child is on your lap, feel free to move your legs up and down to the beat, or tap your child's arm to the beat, or sway to the beat.... anything to communicate the rhythm of the text.
-Go ahead and sing it too! Your child is very forgiving, by the way.... :-)

So, simple and SO effective when done regularly. In my teaching, the NUMBER ONE problem I encounter in kids is a poor sense of rhythm and this is the HARDEST thing to instruct a student in if they don't naturally "get it."  So, I encourage you ALL to help the cause for rhythm!

Have fun!