So the Meet the Music Hero was pretty much born from this book and Angie's post about doing a program around this book. I had read it and loved it and knew I had to include in this series. Plus, Melba was born and lived in Kansas City as a child, so I loved that there was a local connection to our state!
We started this program with going over some background info, talking about jazz and how girls didn't often play jazz. I talked about how picture book biographies are amazing because you can learn about people you never knew about! I told the kids that I hadn't known about Melba until I read this book and I'm glad I learned about her because her story is wonderful. Then we read Little Melba and her Big Trombone by Kathryn Russel-Brown.
We also got to make a week to week connection with this book and the previous week because Melba played with Charlie Parker!
Then we watched a video of Melba playing her trombone. I loved it when we could show a video of our hero because Pamela and I thought it made it so much more real for the kids.
Also, extra points for this video because it features an all girl jazz band!
Then we played more of Melba's music and let the kids check out the fun fact wall Pamela made.
We had them make "trombones" out of strawbees. They were able to put the straws and connectors together to create whatever instrument they wanted to make, but they loved trying to make the slider on the trombone out of straws!
We also put out lots of books on display, especially titles about female musicians.
And this is what I get for not posting about this program until weeks later-I know we had another station, but I can't remember what it was!
We had a small but dedicated group this week and the parents were very engaged. I think they loved learning about someone they had never heard of as much as the kids did. As we read Melba's story, the parents said "wow!" almost as much as the kids which I thought was wonderful. I loved introducing them to a new musician and new book.
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