Written by Maureen Wright
Illustrated by Stephen Gilpin
ISBN: 978-0-545-32826-5
This charming story about a snowman making some hot not-so-hot choices has been a joy for the children in my class. The book is currently being offered through Scholastic Books for only $1.00 and many of my boys and girls have already asked if they could order a copy. I am lucky that at our school, many of the teachers already order from Scholastic Books, so the children are very familiar with the book club and how the ordering works. I simply sent home the Scholastic magazine along with a cover letter explaining how it was being used to reinforce the rhythmic and melodic concepts being taught in music this month.
While there are many rhythmic opportunities for GR 1 in this book of rhyming verse, I want to reinforce creating and reading s-m-l patterns with my students, I have been creating simply melodies using snowman icons -- each snowman has a word on his tummy. The words are taken from the snowman's repeated phrase in the story, "Make me brand new."
Each time the snowman melts, I move the snowman icons (with words on the tummy) to a different location on a two-line staff. Although I sang it the first few times, the children picked up on the directions quickly and have had a great deal of fun moving the snowmen around to create different melodies.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD S-M-L SNOWMAN with STORY WORDS
This sounds like a really fun, meaningful lesson plan. I am getting the book from the library right now and am anxious to try the lesson with my first graders. Thank you for your wonderful ideas.
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