Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Jazzy Storytime

Storytime on February 25th had a Jazz/Mardi Gras theme. I had planned to do this theme the weekend prior to Fat Tuesday, but ended up too sick to speak, let alone do storytime!

I started out by playing the kids the song "When We're Human" from the Princess and the Frog soundtrack as a way to orient them to the concept of jazz music. I talked a bit about Mardi Gras and New Orleans. I read This Jazz Man by Karen Ehrhardt (this is one of my favorite books to read my son), which I first learned about on the Confessions of a Real Librarian blog (great resource for storytime ideas). I then played the audiobook of CD of Jazz Fly by Matthew Gollub and "read along" using the physical book. The kids LOVED the Jazz Fly CD and they all got up and started dancing as it played. It was really fun to watch them get so excited!

After the stories, I played the rest of the Princess and the Frog soundtrack, and we made Mardi Gras masks using random art supplies I had (plastic masks were sold in 3 packs at Michael's). I had feathers, foam stickers, glitter glue and pom poms for the kids to use for their masks. They really enjoyed the craft, and showing them off when they were done. 
Here's a few pictures of some of the kids and their creations.



I was really impressed with how interested the kids were in jazz and how well they responded to the music. I plan to do another music themed storytime soon - playing music really seems to get everyone energized and social.

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