Favorite Books

Rubber-Band Banjos and a Java Jive Bass is a book full of ways to mix the science of how sound works with fun do-it-yourself instruments.  Have fun finding things around the house and putting them together to make your own instruments.



















Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo is a fun train story that goes along nicely with any train song.  Have fun watching the train go all around the house and listen to it's whistle blow! 




















Time For Bed by Mem Fox is a wonderful bedtime story and lullaby.  The song that fits with the book is "The Day Is Now Over," by Carl Orff.  The song can be found on page 19 in the Orff-Schulwerk Volume 1 book.  Time for Bed is a  rhyming book that has mother animals saying goodnight to their baby animals.  

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins is my favorite book. What's better than monkeys and drums. We used this book at the Montessori school to learn about crescendo (soft-loud) and decrescendo (loud-soft). We discussed the number of monkeys playing drums and how loud they would be. The children played sticks/drums only when they heard the drumming words, "dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum."  Ask your children what crescendo and decrescendo  mean and have fun exploring these elements of music vocally and with instruments.

Fiddle-I-Fee is the Mother Goose rhyme that we used recently in the Montessori class.  We started off with a memory game singing first what the cat says "Fiddle-I-Fee," Then what the goose and cat say, etc.  After we sang the song and learned what all the animals say in order we added an instrument sound for each animal.  The students had to hold their instrument quietly until it was their animals turn in the song.  They did a wonderful job of watching the conductor and waiting their turn in our piece.  It was a great beginning experience in ensemble playing!  

Max Found Two Sticks by Brian Pinkney is a book we will be reading soon in the Montessori class.  This book is similar to the Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb and Fiddle-I-Fee activities where the students have to wait until they hear the drum sound to play.  We wait until later in the year for this one because Max plays more complex rhythms to imitate the sounds he hears in the book.  A great at home activity to follow up on this book is to listen for everyday rhythms and sounds around you and try to imitate their rhythms.  

More books to come soon!