September Reads for the Classroom

Welcome back! I am excited to be back after a relaxing summer to talk about my favorite thing in the classroom: books! I hope that everyone has had a wonderful summer, and I hope that my posts can help you plan your lessons more effectively as well as diversify the books you have in your classroom. 
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I am going to begin with some new books that have come out this year, which would be good to use for community building as well as introducing some new musicians to your students. 

I’s the B’y: The Beloved Newfoundland Folk Song 

​This book just came out in May of this year, and it is a beautiful illustrated copy of this beloved folk song. The illustrator, Lauren Soloy, did a great job in honoring the song by creating gorgeous illustrations of boats, whales, fish, and stormy seas, which is a nod to the birthplace of this tune.

This book is great for keeping a steady beat, singing along and then following up with a dance to the repeated refrain! Also great for doing any kind of ocean themed lessons that you might be doing, either in the beginning or any other time of the year.

​The Greatest Song of All: How Isaac Stern United to Save Carnegie Hall by Megan Hoyt 

This book was a surprise in the sense that I have not come across too many children’s books about Isaac Stern. Even more importantly is his role in saving Carnegie Hall, one of the most important musical performance venues in the world! Isaac Stern’s story is even more relevant for today’s times, because he was born in current day Ukraine and his parents fled Ukraine for San Francisco. Isaac practiced countless hours until he was good enough to play at Carnegie Hall, a music venue that he would later fight to save. This is a great introduction to not only Isaac Stern, but Carnegie Hall. In fact, after I read the book to my students I love to play some videos of the history of Carnegie Hall. 

Here are some examples:

The famous New York Carnegie Hall | with Sarah Willis

But First We Nap by David Miles and Slow Samson by Bethany Christou 

These books are great for instrument play and learning about slow tempo. I like to start with But First We Nap, and I give students instruments to play when the sloth says “But first we nap”. As a follow up, I read Slow Samson, which I discovered recently. This book tells the story of Samson the sloth who was always very slow to arrive at parties. Finally, his friends planned a party two hours earlier, so that Samson would arrive on time. I have composed a song and chant that your students can say at certain times in the book. To access this, please click here to purchase it from my TPT store. 

​How Messy! By Clare Helen Welsh

I included this book in my September post, because this is the month that we are working on setting routines in our classrooms. One of those is the reminder to clean up after ourselves. In this new book, published this year, Clare Helen Welsh describes the friendship between Dot, the little girl who is very neat, and Duck who is constantly creating messes. While the two friends learn to accept each other’s differences by the end of the book, this book can be a great reminder to your students to try and keep their space neat, whether in your music classroom or in their general class. I have created a chant that they can use at certain points in the book, part of which I will post here:

​For the rest of the chant and accompanying lesson, please click here.

I hope these books help you begin your school year. Here’s to creating some beautiful musical messes and masterpieces in your classroom!
Best wishes for a wonderful year.
Polina