Poetry is Music

Yesterday was the last day of April and the last day of National Poetry Month and the day before yesterday was last poetry-themed Sunday Storytime, "Poetry is Music". We were very fortunate to have a couple special guests, local musician, Michael Bradley and his daughter Eva preforming lyrical songs. I would alternate reading a poem that is also a song/song that is also a poem picture books and they preformed the song sing-a-long style.

Poetry is Music Storytime Line-up:

This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie, illustrations by Kathy Jakobsen

I Had a Rooster by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, song by Pete Seeger

Over the Rainbow by Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg, adapted by Judy Collins, illustrations by Eric Puybaret

Eva, Michael's daughter, sang "Over the Rainbow" and it was gorgeous.

But in case weren't there to hear Ava... here's good ol' Judy.

We also sang "Oh Susanna"

and Cat Steven's "If You Want To Sing Out Sing Out"

Musical Bean Tambourine Craft:

Since we had a musical storytime, for our craft we made musical instruments... Bean Tamborines! Of course after I prepped my examples for storytime and took pictures of them, I realized I switched the "Music" and "Poetry" on the tambourine. So it should read like so...

But you get the idea.

This was an extremely simple craft to make and really all you need is dried beans, paper plates, and a stapler, but if you want all the bells and whistles, you can add whichever decorations that seem fit! Markers, paint, glitter, ribbon.... We used crepe paper and stickers.

If you're not adding streamers, go ahead and fill one paper plate with a handful of beans.

If you are adding streamers, go ahead and tape streamers to the inside of the plate and then add beans.

Place another paper plate on top of the one filled with beans and staple together. Make sure the staples are close enough so the beans don't spill out.

Cut streamers to desired length.

And decorate!

Here is a look back at the other poetry-themed storytimes from April:

Poetry is FUN

Poetry as STORY

Poetry in NATURE

I can't believe it's over...

Where did April go?

Hope everyone had a wonderful, poetry-filled month! Happy May Day!



image sources: this land is your land sheet music, this land is your land, i had a rooster, over the rainbow