Art, Music, and Children's Lit. A Winning Combination!

Painted Music 

Integrated Art, Music, and Children's Literature Activities
BPP-APM - Book with Online materials - $29.95
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When Aimee Curtis Pfitzner first approached me regarding her third publication, she impressed me with her total commitment and enthusiasm for a new project integrating art, music, and children's literature. Her idea was to incorporate works from artists like Piet Mondrian, Romare Bearden, Wasily Kandinsky, Dale Chihuly and more to illustrate and illuminate favorite children's books like Coppernickel Goes Mondrian, and The Noisy Paint Box. She also uses music from Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, Claude Debussy, Frank Sinatra and others as the basis for full length Orff process lesson plans for songs, activities and more children's lit like Du Iz Tak? and original activities like Channeling Chihuly.

The result, Painted Music, is a fantastic new resource for elementary music teachers using art and music to activate children's literature. Aimee has chosen several of her favorite children's books and has added art activities, songs, and Orff instrument arrangements. Each activity has a complete Orff process lesson plan along with material lists, recommended art works for viewing and listening selections. 

Making connections to music and art through children’s literature is a natural connection; books can be found on a plethora of subjects, in a dizzying array of genres and are rich in artistry; full of amazing illustrations, paintings, computer art, and 3-dimensional artwork. This collection is a short brush stroke on the canvas of arts and literature integration. The hope is that teachers will be able to  make new connections using the books on these pages and seek out other books to create new art, music, and literature activities for students to visually, aurally, and orally play with.

Online materials are included with each book, including manipulatives, visuals, and vocal scores. Playlists for musical resources are available in iTunes and Spotify

Painted Music is available now! Ask about school and dealer discounts.

Make a Marimba for your Music Classes!

I've been making marimbas with school kids since 1997 when I saw Jon Madin at the Seattle AOSA conference. He showed us some marimbas he had made with a local school and gave a short demonstration of how they were built. We played a couple of tunes and I was hooked!

My music supervisor back home in Augusta County asked me what I'd like to do the following summer at the music camp we held each summer. Without hesitation, I said, "Let's make some marimbas!" We made 6 marimbas that summer based on Jon Madin's design and I went on to make 3 more for my own music room. 

Since 1998, I've gone on to make many more marimbas with students up and down the East Coast. Just this morning, I've finished up the preparations for two more marimbas (numbers 42 and 43), a Bass and a 3 ½ octave Aussie that are bound for St. Stephen's School in Bradenton, FL. I've got 3 more workshops coming up this spring, one in Indiana, one in Georgia, and one back home in Virginia. 

I can testify to the fun and joyful learning that takes place at these workshops. Kids can get their hands on materials and tools and help make a beautiful new instrument for themselves! We discus how the sounds are made, why tuning is so important, and how resonators amplify the sound of the tonebars without any electronic amplification. 

Try it sometime!
Make a marimba at school!

Let's Play and Sing some SOL'S!!

School Songs BookCD available too!

About five years ago, my good friend and Galax dulcimer player, Phyllis Gaskins ask me to help her
record some songs she had written for her second graders. I happily complied and recorded this remarkable set of children's songs about learning objectives in elementary school.

Phyllis was an elementary classroom teacher, now retired. Her love of music and singing meant that her class sessions were always filled with music and learning. Alas, at a beginning of the year faculty meeting, she and the rest of the staff were handed learning objectives for the entire year.  Phyllis described it as "no frills learning." This was her response.

So, being feisty, I set up an appointment with the principal. I had a plan.

Principal: You cannot justify singing in the classroom because the children have music once a week with a “trained” music teacher. 

Me: What?!?! Why???

Principal: You have to follow the curricula. The objectives for reading, math, social studies, and science are to be the focus of every lesson. 

Me: Ok. What if I find or create songs that teach those objectives? Can we sing more often?

Principal: Let me see what you can develop. 

So…

I created a document with all of the core objectives labeled and numbered. I searched for songs to teach these, and when I could not find one, I wrote one. Each month I gave the principal an update on my progress and invited him into the classroom to observe the lesson. Mission accomplished. My song writing journey began.

And just like that School Songs was born. This brand new release is all about songs for Social Studies, Science and Reading in the elementary classroom. The songbook contains full scores for every song on the CD. Some of the songs have lead sheets with guitar or ukulele chords and some are full scores for including parts for Orff instruments and/or home made marimbas.

Teach geography with Trip to Egypt or Fly to China. Energize your social studies lessons with In the Good Old USA and The Three Resources. Study condensation, precipitation, and water vapor by singing The Water Cycle!

The songs on the CD (available separately) are performed and recorded by Brent Holl, folk singer and former teacher as well. He uses acoustic guitar, melodica, all manner of special percussion instruments, and a home made marimba. Teachers who have marimbas or Orff instruments in their classrooms will be able to re-create the Orff arrangements written in this book with their students. All of these arrangements are playable on guitar, keyboard or ukulele! Have a listen, courtesy of CD Baby!  Find out more at http://bppub.net/Buy_School_Songs