Sing Them A Story

Greetings!

This month is our two-year birthday here at Adventures in Literacy Land, and the plan is to have a good time sharing what we do best in our little classroom corners of the kingdom!

It has truly been a pleasure and a privilege for me to contribute to this collaborative blog for a year now!  I am always thoroughly inspired and educated by my fellow ALL friends each and every time I read their posts!  I can only hope that you come away from what I have to say with at least one or two ideas that you can use in your classroom tomorrow!

In my twenty-five years as an advocate for blending music, movement, and literature across the curriculum, I have had many teachers tell me....

"Oh I can't carry a tune!  I can't include songs or chants in my teaching if I can't sing!"  

I just smile and say...

"The kids don't care if you sound like a sick frog. They will just start singing with you no matter how you sound!"

They then try to counter with.....

"But it's easy for you.....you play the guitar!"

I smile even more widely and say......

"But PIGGYBACK SONGS don't require instruments!"

Piggyback songs just require familiarity with the tunes of old and traditional folk songs, nursery rhymes, and circle games from your childhood.  Everybody knows the tune to Farmer In The Dell, London Bridges, Did You Ever See A Lassie, and A-Tisket, A-Tasket, right?

Now just grab some chart paper, a marker, and model how to change the words to fit your lesson topic or unit theme!  For example, today during our morning meeting, my "Sally Squirrel" puppet helped my second graders recall and sort the migrators, hibernators, and adaptors we'd met while reading  

Jan Brett's Annie and the Wild Animals.  

Their anchor chart then inspired me to write two piggyback songs to help the group review and remember our important science concepts, which then inspired me to write a few more winter-themed songs for YOU to use with your primary grade students!  

You'll find the link to this FREE Sing Me A Story pack {HERE}.  It includes colorful cover sheets that can be used to create dividers for a class notebook, and a blackline cover sheet that you can use if you decide to staple all of the songs into student sets.   I've even included a list of some of my favorite picture books that are a perfect match for each song!

If you like using songs and rhyme to improve fluency, expression, and rhythm skills in your young readers, you might enjoy this post, Five Days & Five Ways To Use Poetry With Primary Grade Students over on my blog!   Click {HERE} to read all about it and see these two new resources I created!

As always, thanks so much for allowing me to share my stories and songs with you.  May the words of John Denver give you courage to share their magic with your little learners!