music for preschoolers

Violet's Music by Angela Johnson, Illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith

This is a fun book that celebrates music and musicians--those people born with music in their souls. It begins with Violet as a baby in the nursery shaking her rattle hoping the other babies would join in.

It continues to her second birthday where her aunt bertha brings her a box of supplies to make her own horns, to grade school, etc, all the while she was "always looking for kids like her."

In the end, she finds her other music people while playing guitar at the park one day. A drummer, saxophone player, and a singer all make there way to her and they then form a band.

It ends with, "And if you ask any of them whether they thought they'd find each other, they'll say, "O yeah, we did, we knew we would. 'Cause when were in the nursery, then were two, and later in kindergarten and on the beach, we kept on looking for kids playing music too!"

Juliet LOVED this one. I think she might be one of those little music kids looking for her music friends. I hope she finds them one day.

Activity Idea: (Make Aunt Bertha's 2nd birthday gift to Violet.)

Fill a shoebox with toilet paper rolls, glitter, crayons, glitter, and glue, feather, etc and let your child make some horns!

I was very excited as I packed up this fun little shoe box for Juliet. I imagined she would dive into this project with great zest and enthusiasm. And to a certain extent, she did do that, just not in the way that I had imagined.

She took one look at the paper towel tubes, squealed in delight, and began running around the house "playing music." I kept asking her if she wanted to stop and decorate them, but she said, "NO!" (quite firmly) and continued running around tooting her horn.

I guess when it's time for music, it's time for music.

Do you have any favorite music books or crafts to share?