Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Old Black Fly"

Here is another find from the local public library: "Old Black Fly" by Jim Aylesworth and illustrated by Stephen Gammell.  The melody for the book is "Buffalo Gals".   The book is organized as an alphabet book with the old black fly doing everything from eating apple pie, to stealing jelly, snoozing on a quilt, and finally "zzzzzzz-ing" his way to being swatted.

This is another nice wrap-up to a music lesson, especially if you are working on call and response songs with your students.

• Before reading the story, teach the students the response: "Shoo fly! Shoo fly! Shoo."

• As the reader of the story, the teacher sings the "call". For example, "He ate on the crust of the Apple pie. He bothered the Baby and made her cry."

• The students will sing the response: "Shoo fly! Shoo fly! Shoo."