Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Halloween Mice!"

Oh, those Preschoolers, Kindergartners and First Graders, always on the move! They are naturally always in-motion and on the go, and we need to include plenty of movement activities in our music classes.  We also always need to be mindful that their attention span just about equals their age in minutes...so the four-year-old can pay attention for four minutes, the five-year-old for five minutes, and so on. (Personal aside: Why does this only pertain to school, and not so much to video games??)

So, for the music teacher, this means that you need to be changing up your activities in the lessons you plan quite often! It is challenging to plan all of the necessary activities, but well worth having your young students engaged, learning, and happy in their musical activities! To that end, "Halloween Mice!" by Bethany Roberts is a great book to use as a creative movement activity as a part of your class during this month of October.



"Costumed mice frisk, whisk, whirl, and twirl through the moonlight to party in the pumpkin patch. Rustle, rustle, swish, swish, the Halloween cat prepares to pounce. After a quick huddle, the clever rodents use their flashlight to create a monstrous shadow to frighten the cat away. Home again, the tired little creatures tumble into bed, except for the littlest, who creates his own monster. Full-page watercolors are appropriate for the holiday while not too scary for the intended audience. The simple text is packed with words to delight the ear." -Virginia Opocensky, formerly at Lincoln City Libraries, NE Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

• Be sure that your students have plenty of room to move with this book, and that you review your rules for traveling safely in space around the room.

• Instruct the students that they are going to pretend to be the mice in the story. They will move like mice as you read the story.

• Here are some of the locomotor movements they will use in the story:

• tiptoe
• hurry scurry
• skitter
• scamper
• whirl, twirl, swirl
• dancing
• huddle
• scramble
• make shadows
• tumble

• You may wish to turn the lights off and use a flashlight for making shadows.