It is officially summer break and school has ended. For the next week, I am working at our school’s summer camp, which is a very nice camp for elementary grade-level students. The camp includes some reading elements, some writing workshops, and some arts elements. We also include time for exploration and play that can include arts and crafts, exploring our campus, and water exploration.

For the last two years, I have had a small informance for the parents and caregivers. The informance varied and included a culmination of their reading, writing, and music classes. We have presented ebooks of new verses to Down By The Bay that they would sing while the book was displayed on the screen. We also learned to play songs on various instruments and performed them on the final day. We have also acted out stories and added music to them, such as "We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.

In years past, I had separate informances for each grade level. This year, I am going to have them all culminate with a recorded informance of Eric Litwin’s book, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons. I will have my oldest elementary students perform the song on drums, boomwhackers, xylophones, ukuleles, and classroom instruments. My middle-aged elementary students will act out the book. And my youngest elementary students will perform the sound effects. I am looking forward to seeing this come to fruition!

Pete the Cat Ukulele Play-Along

In order to accomplish this, I created a ukulele play-along video to help the students learn the chords. From using the Buttercup Storytime video, I changed the key of the song to make it more user-friendly to accompany with the ukulele. The images of the ukulele chords come from Ukulele Buddy.

Part 2 with the Boomwhacker Play-along of Surfin’ USA by The Beach Boys coming soon!

Stay tuned this summer as I will continue to provide weekly webisodes on my YouTube Channel including tech tips, play-along videos, and more!