NJMEA Storytelling, Picture Books & Music

Storytelling, Literature, Picture Books & Music  – Room 303
New Jersey MEA Conference • Atlantic City, NJ
Thursday, February 20, 2020 • 3:30 – 4:30 pm

Here is the handout we put up on the Conference website.

Chiney Doll
I introduced this traditional children’s song with a story about Eliza’s grandfather Roger, grandmother Mary, about the apple trees they planted, and about Eliza’s mother and father and baby brother Johnny, and how Eliza, sitting on her Mama’s lap, hears the Peddler coming and runs to meet him.

Humpty Dump
Nursery Rhymes are part of our common culture; this song is a good way to deepen upper elementary students knowledge of nursery rhymes. Often when a child suggests a nursery rhyme we recite the whole rhyme in a formal style before putting it into the song.

Picture Books See the bibliography in the handout
* Mamma Don’t Allow –
repeat the words, sing the songs
* I Live In Music – read to “Take Five”
* Owl Moon
 (just mentioned)
* Day Is Done – sing the song
* Wild Strawberries –
read to Carlos Nakai music
* Madeline
read to Debussy music

The Peddler’s Dream
Here is an outline of the story.
After telling the story we acted it out.  I was the narrator/musician/director. Children love acting out stories. You can use the whole class to help work out choreography and staging. You can have several children be villagers, neighbors, even multiple angels.  We had an angel moving workshop – you can actually do an angel moving workshop with the whole class.  You say “Let’s use Thomas’s arm movements, Sarah’s twirling, and the movement Parker is doing with his legs.”