Tuesday Book Club- Night Time Stories

I just thought I would share a few of my favorite night time/ lullaby story books! If you have a favorite lullaby book and activity OR just another favorite book, be sure to link up! Instructions are at the end of the post.

Time For Bed by Mem Fox:

Get it HERE. This is a great lullaby for the littles as it shows many baby animals getting sung to before bed.  For example, "It's time for bed little deer, little deer.  The very last kiss is almost here."  I sing it using a melody from the 4th grade Game Plan book.  (Starts on Low La with a tone set of l, d r m and is in 6/8!)

I bring it back in grade 3 when we are working on low la and they sight read the pattern, and then I read the book again to them as a "throwback"- too bad I can only say "Throwback Thursday" to one class :) After that we do the melody with body signs (low la= knees, do is hips, re is waist, mi is shoulders).  Once they are really good at the solfa and melody, I have the students make up their own verse either using their own animal such as: It's time for bed little fox, little fox, listen to the song from the music box OR they can finish the sentence at the end of the book "The Stars on High are shining bright..."  This is a way to work on sentence parts like subject, predicate, verb, etc. - yay cross-curricular connections! I get some good ones with that sentence like "The stars on high are shining bright, the man in the moon ate cheese tonight" or "The stars on high are shining bright, so close your eyes make a wish tonight."  I allow students to be as silly as they want as long as it isn't gross or violent. 

My kiddos really love this throwback and once I have all of their sentences we take a day to illustrate them and make them into a class book to share with the younger grades during music class or book buddies (when 3rd pairs up with 1st once a week to read together). 

Note: This one also comes in a Spanish/ English version!

Another favorite night time book is: When You Wish Upon a Star performed by Judy Collins, Paintings by Eric Puybaret, Music by Ned Washington, and Lyrics by Leigh Harline.  Get it HERE

This is a BEAUITFUL BOOK with the song you recognize from Pinocchio.  It comes with a CD, performed by Judy Collins. The CD also includes her performing The Other Side of my World and All the Pretty Horses (Hush-a-bye).  The pictures are so whimsical and depict children from all over the world wishing, hoping and dreaming.  My students love to just sit and listen and this book is requested often.  Great for when they are a little wound up and need to calm down before heading back to class.


And finally: This is one I found with my astronomer brother in mind.  He had been Skyping the special needs 5th graders in my school from his Grad School apartment at Cal Tech when the kids were learning about Space.  He taught them all about the planets, the phases of the moon, and the life cycle of the star.  For each he read a book and then did some activities.  When we were looking at books for the life cycle of a star we came across this: The Astronomically Correct Twinkle Twinkle by Henry Reich and Zach Weinersmith.   This book sets verses to the same tune we all know and love, but all of it is full of facts about the life cycle of a star, black holes, why stars twinkle and more.  You can get the song on I-Tunes OR the book HERE.  Next year I plan on making an orff accompaniment to it to throw in if we have extra time during the weeks students are doing their astronomy unit.


I would love for you to link up and write a post about your own favorite book to read or sing and how you incorporate it into your classroom.  It can be a night-time book- or not! There are so many great books out there! If you don't have your own blog, feel free to comment on your favorites as well!

To link up: Copy the Tuesday Book Club picture from the top of the post and put it at the top of your blog post.  Be sure to link the picture back to this post!   Once your post is written and published, click the link below and copy the url where asked and then you are all set!  The link-up will be open til March 1, 2015- but of course you can comment after that! I will be sure to keep all links live by re-copying them into the main post so that even after March you can get all the great ideas!

Link-ups:
Pursuit of Joyfulness