Literature!

Please put your links and/or information about a children's book/literature that you feel would be appropriate for the age level you teach, want to teach, or are interested in. Please put a few sentences with your link to explain how you might use this literature in your future classroom! As I mentioned in class, I recommend purchasing a book or two during our semester that you might use in the future! It never goes to waste! ~ Jess

http://www.amazon.com/Meet-Orchestra-Ann-Hayes/dp/0152002227/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243911948&sr=1-3 This is a book called //Meet the Orchestra// by Ann Hayes. I read it to my 3rd graders last year and they adored it! It's a fun way to introduce orchestra instruments and sounds. I'm thinking about using it for my lesson with you guys! I will probably incorporate it with "moving" like musicians. -Catie

Here's the [|link] to a book called //Mole Music// by David McPhail at Amazon. It is a great story about a mole who hears a violinist on TV, then decides to start playing it himself. At first he is awful, but then he practices and becomes quite good. People above ground gather at his tree to hear the "magical" tree that plays music. - Kara

"__Ah, Music__" by Aliki, asks the question "what is music", and explores its various aspects from sound, to feeling, to composition, genre, and music across history. It is a wonderfully illustrated book, and is a great music reference guide for any classroom. I will bring it to class, but here is the link if you want to learn more about it: [] - Wayne

"__Duke Ellington__" by Andrea Davis Pinkey is a biography about Duke Ellington's life. This book was awesome illustrations with swirling colors that represent the sounds of instruments, and try to convey mood. This is great book to use if you're going ot employ "sound effects" as you can play Ellington's songs as they are introduced in the book, or as background music throughout the read aloud. [] - Wayne

=The little prince= By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry http://books.google.com/books?id=vlr0uqedlWcC&dq=the+little+prince&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=u-UmSqjRM6CW8wSFvJSCDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#PPP1,M1 One of my favorite books! I believe it has something to say to learners of any age (whether they know they are learning or not). One could focus on the travel aspect of this story, it could be and exercise in the science of the star system, an examination of various jobs which people choose to work (or find themselves in). Of great impact to me when I read it is the idea that there are so many ways of seeing one thing. The idea of "looking inside" something is a perspective which I think can rock someone's world and change the way they see themselves in terms of relations between self and other. Suggested activities might be to draw a map of the voyage, or to pack a suitcase for it, or to draw objects showing their exteriors and interiors (guessing games with others as to "what's inside" before showing the interior view, or a game of "exquisite corpse" in having one person draw the exterior and a partner draw what they think might be the interior). Since it's also availabe in French, it would be accessible to use it as a means of learning some basic foreign language vocabulary (two readers could take turns reading page number "x" in english, the in french). - Lisa

//Beethoven Lives Upstairs// by Barbara Nichol is a wonderful story about how a little boy's life changes when Beethoven moves into the apartment upstairs. Although it is a fictional story, it includes factual information about Beethoven's life and music. The book is accompanied by an audio recording and many of Beethoven's most famous pieces are played as the story is told. It is a wonderful way to expose children to Beethoven's life and music. Although I have never taught the book, I loved listening to is as a kid! - Michele

http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Lives-Upstairs-Orchard-Paperbacks/dp/0531071189 (book) http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Lives-Upstairs-Barbara-Nichol/dp/B00000212L/ref=pd_sim_b_1/191-5026411-2727505 (CD)

//The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tails// by Jon Scieszka is full of parodies of famous fairy tails and could work great in a unit about retelling stories. I used it with some of the ESL elementary students I tutored and they LOVED it. We read The Gingerbread Man first and then compared it was the Stinky Cheese Man. Students could also continue the theme by writing their own versions of other fairy tales. What's great about the Gingerbread Man and the Stinky Cheese Man is that they are both so rhythmic and repetitive that they lend themselves to musical activities as well as literary ones. -Sarah