Rodgers and Hammerstein Unit Studies for Kids

This past summer, some old friends invited my daughter and I to join them to see Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella at the North Shore Music Theatre. We did and it was excellent. After that weekend, we realized more than we had before how big a deal musical theater is for our girl. She couldn't stop talking about the costumes, especially Cinderella's and the fairy godmother's rags that transformed into gorgeous ball gowns when they spun around right before our eyes. Then there was the fascination with the way the show portrayed aspects of the story, like the prop "horses" lit up with Christmas lights taking Cinderella to the ball. And there were some plot twists we weren't expecting, like the fact that after a second ball Cinderella intentionally leaves a shoe behind. And most of all, the music. We were Rodgers & Hammerstein newbies before that show and were immediately enchanted by the wonderful songs. Within a couple of weeks M had them all memorized, belting them out throughout the day, humming them constantly, getting them stuck in all of our heads. 

Added up, the experience really lit something in her that honestly has stayed alive ever since. It made us want to get her out in the world to see plays and musicals whenever possible, ...AND it inspired one of the most fun things we've been up to this school year: unit studies on Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals! 

Rodgers and Hammerstein Musical Theater Unit Studies for Kids

 

We started with a Cinderella study, then about a month later we moved onto The Sound of Music, and after that State Fair, and finally The King and I. With each one, we began with simply watching the movie, then moved on to check out different versions, do related activities, go on field trips when possible, and end with some sort of special culminating project. These unit studies have been a high point in her week. Here are the fun activities and lessons we've done that you might want to try with any musical-loving kids in your life. I listed them in roughly the order we did them. 

Unit Study: Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella

• The Show: We watched Cinderella live at the North Shore Musical Theatre. It really made an impression! 

• The Songs: We listened to Spotify playlists of R&H Cinderella songs in the car, both the Julie Andrews version and Broadway versions, over and over...and over and over... There are so many great songs, from "In My Own Little Corner" to "Impossible/It's Possible" to "Lovely Night" and more.

• Singing: I Googled lyrics to many of the songs, by M's request, and printed them out for her so she could sing along whenever she wanted and learn the trickier parts. (She also discovered for me that if I let her hold my phone, she could read the lyrics at the bottom of the Spotify screen for the song being played.)

• Other R&H Cinderella Productions: There are so many Cinderella films out there, and we watched two other R&H ones we loved:
• The 1957 version of R&H's Cinderella on YouTube, which we were delighted to find since it doesn't appear to be available anywhere else to stream. It's black and white, was broadcast live on TV in 1957, when it received the biggest television audience for anything up till that point, and stars Julie Andrews. The YouTube video includes a modern introduction by Julie Andrews, and is definitely worth watching. 

• We also watched the version with Brandy as Cinderella, which features Whitney Houston as fairy godmother (M's self-declared "favorite fairy godmother") singing "There's Music in You," which is a R&H song pulled out of old files of theirs and unique to this movie. This one has a diverse cast, and the set and props are peppy and colorful. 

• Online Lessons: We found the Musical Theatre Project online and enjoyed the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella unit lessons there (a legacy left there from Covid quarantine days). The lessons were brief and to the point and full of good energy. We learned a dance to "A Lovely Night," saw brief videos about Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and discussed Cinderella's character traits, among other things.

• Read Aloud: There are so many picture book versions of Cinderella, from all over the world, and we read a LOT of them. This gave us a chance to discuss a lot of things-- similarities, differences, themes, authors' choices-- in a kid-friendly way. I made sure we discussed early on what a "rags to riches" story is, and also what a "fairy tale," by definition, is. I was a little worried that by spending all this time on Cinderella that I would be teaching her to value love at first sight or salvation in the form of rescue by a handsome prince! But what was neat was the more we learned and the more stories we read, we started to see more and more the deeper, admirable aspects of this timeless tale-- like the feeling of wishing for something deeply. And Cinderella has a lot of special traits beyond her beauty: she is hopeful, kind, resilient, optimistic (hardly ever letting those mean step sisters really get her down), and in most versions she shows forgiveness in the end, despite all her hardship.    

• Cinderella with a Modern Twist: Since we were becoming such experts in how this tale has been told in different places at different times in different ways, we watched one other movie version of Cinderella that was not Rodgers and Hammerstein. It was a modern version, starring Camila Cabello and featuring Idina Menzel as the stepmother. In it, Cinderella dreams of being a dress designer. This film is a musical, with characters singing a great variety of popular music, from "You Gotta Be" to "Let's Get Loud." My favorites are Cinderella singing "Million to One" as she dreams, and the stepmother and stepsisters singing "Material Girl." This version is so fast-paced and energetic, and just surprising, that's it's really very enjoyable. 

• Culminating Project: Write your own Cinderella: And as a grand finale, my daughter wrote her own Cinderella story. First we listed the features that so many of the stories had: magic, a mean step family, a hard-working main character, a fairy godmother person (or animal in many cases), a happy ending, and so on. Then M chose which aspects she wanted to include in hers. She was inspired to make the fairy godmother in her version a unicorn, who takes Cinderella (who she renamed with her own name) across a rainbow to the ball. She voice typed the story in Google Docs, we printed it off as a booklet in Word, and she illustrated it with stickers and stamps and stencils!

Cinderella story planning sheet

Voice-typing: a break from the physical effort of writing to let the creativity flow :) 

M's own Cinderella story

Unit Study: Rodgers & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music

• The Show: We watched The Sound of Music on Disney Plus.

• Singing the Songs: M was immediately consumed by the story and all the songs; it's so sweet and fun, it would be hard not to be. Again we listened to the soundtrack on Spotify a lot and I printed out lyrics to various songs for her, from "Edelweiss" to "I Have Confidence."

• Field Trip: We heard stories about the real Maria and the rest of the real von Trapp family on a history tour at the Trapp Family Lodge, which happens to be within easy driving distance from us. While we were there, M and I treated ourselves to lunch out, where we sampled schnitzel-- which is one of Maria's "Favorite Things" in the song of that name.   

Sampling schnitzel

These hills at the Trapp Family Lodge in VT are reminiscent of the Alps...

von Trapp family tree, at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, VT

• Baking: Continuing with the food theme, we experienced another of the "Favorite Things" for ourselves by baking our own "crisp apple strudel."

"Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels..."

• Online Articles: We enjoyed looking at the old family photos in this Mental Floss article, and particularly two videos: one of Maria von Trapp teaching Julie Andrews the right way to yodel (really cute and funny) and another of an interview with an elderly Maria von Trapp. 

• Other R&H Sound of Music Production: We couldn't resist checking out a 2018 made-for-TV version of The Sound of Music starring Carrie Underwood, but (in my opinion) it was a very weak replica and overall pretty underwhelming, so I don't really recommend it... 

• Violin: My daughter plays violin, so we added "Do Re Mi" to her repertoire with this video.

• Dancing: We tried to dance the Landler, the Austrian folk dance featured in the film, with this YouTube tutorial.

• Yodeling: We read a great, short National Geographic article about the origins of yodeling in Switzerland with video demonstration by a native, and then we tried it out ourselves with this simple how-to video on yodeling. I'm not sure we were catching on properly, but we had a lot of laughs making some very strange noises while trying. 

• Culminating Project: Rewrite "My Favorite Things": For a final project, I had M write her own version of "My Favorite Things." It's the type of song that's just asking to be rewritten, and everyone's version will come out uniquely. (If I still had an elementary school classroom, I would be doing this project with my whole class!) I had M just brainstorm a bunch of little things in life that make her happy, and she came up with everything from her favorite Disney characters to twirly dresses to big square marshmallows from a local bakery. For the stanza about when she's "feeling sad" she came up with dogs jumping on her and her parents saying no. :) We checked out this simple rewrite example, and used this lesson plan to guide us, particularly using the big idea of focusing on the stress pattern of the syllables. Getting her ideas to fit a certain number of syllables, not to mention placing emphasis on parts of words that wouldn't normally have the emphasis in order to match the stress pattern, was a moderate challenge for a musical 7-year-old, and I think her song turned out amazing-- it's a keepsake for sure. 

M's version of "My Favorite Things"

Unit Study: Rodgers & Hammerstein's State Fair 

• The Show: We watched the 1945 version of State Fair on Amazon Prime. (I don't recommend the 1962 version, available on YouTube, for young kids.) Both my kids enjoyed the comedic elements and it was a simple, though dated, story of the Frake family of Iowa heading to the state fair for the weekend. Mr. Frake is wrapped up in the well being of his prize pig, Mrs. Frake with her award-winning mince meat, while teenage (?) children Margy and Wayne wander around the fair and each has a romantic adventure (that remains chaste in this 1945 version). 

• The Songs: There are a few fun songs, from "Our State Fair" to "It's a Grand Night for Singing" to "Ioway." Per usual, we listened to the soundtrack and printed off lyrics for my daughter to sing along in the car to her heart's content.    

• State Fair Culture: To get a sense of the culture of the Iowa State Fair, we watched a few short PBS videos about it. 

• Learning about the Setting: Occasionally when we are studying a certain place in the world, or about to go on a trip, we check out the Smithsonian Channel's Aerial America series. There is an episode for every state. The episodes are less than an hour, and consist of fly-over footage of a place with voiceover narrating interesting facts and history. We watched Aerial America: Iowa and got lots of views of all those farm fields, and even some of the state fair. 

• Comparing Stage and Screen: We watched a few clips from other stage and screen productions of State Fair. It's always interested to compare the actors, the sets, the costumes, and more with my daughter.  

• Culminating Project: Cooking: We found this old article about a prize-winning mince meat at the Iowa State Fair in the 70s. And we used this recipe to give it a try. I don't think it was anybody's favorite (is it dinner? is it dessert?) but it was fun to try, as the mince meat scenes in the movie are some of the funniest moments.

Had to try out mince meat pie

Unit Study: Rodgers & Hammerstein's The King and I 

• The Show: We watched the 1956 movie, starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner. I had never seen this movie myself it was impressed with it. It has compelling characters and so many interesting aspects to discuss. It is a story based on a novel, which was based on the memoirs of a real person, Anna Leonowens. 
• A bit about the facts and history: Anna took a job teaching the children and wives of King Mongkut of Siam in 1862. (I thought the polygamy aspect might be weird for a kid, but it wasn't a focus in the movie, and I just told her that in many Asian cultures at that time it was common for the king to have more than one wife and she accepted that.) It was a time when nearly every country in Southeast Asia was becoming a colony of a European power. King Mongkut was strategic in handling this, bending to certain pressures but managing to maintain Siam's independence-- and apparently Thailand is the only Southeast nation that has never been colonized. He was progressive in some ways, interested in western developments in science and technology, while he was very traditional in others. Anna was an educated woman, a widow, an experienced traveler, and later part of the suffragette movement. The story takes place at the time of the American Civil War, and in part of the film the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin is portrayed through a Siamese ballet. 

• Discussion Topics: The tension, debates, and friendship the movie portrays between an intelligent, progressive yet traditional monarch, and the modern western woman who arrives at the palace and speaks her mind from the first moment is possibly the best thing about the movie. There were so many interesting topics and themes that we discussed in an age-appropriate way (and a number of them we could have done even more with if my daughter had been older), including:
• What is slavery? What was Uncle Tom's Cabin (mentioned, and portrayed through a ballet scene in the movie) about? What was the Civil War about?
• How can the world feel different depending on one's perspective? (There is a great scene showing the world map with a predominant Siam in the middle of it that the prince/heir knows, contrasted with the "real" world map Anna presents when she is teaching, and there is also a moment when she teaches the children about snow and they don't believe her.)
• The idea of women's roles
• Should things be done in a traditional way, or a new, "scientific" way?
• Power-- what should a good king, or other leader, be like?

• Singing the Songs: This movie has great music and my daughter loved singing the songs as she does every time she watches a new musical, in this case everything from the sweet "Getting to Know You" to the optimistic "Whistle a Happy Tune" to the sweeping-across-the-stage polka "Shall we Dance." 

• Analyzing the Songs: We took the time to read and analyze some King and I lyrics as well, such as the song "A Puzzlement" which is a solo sung by the king. I asked M what the song was really about and the emotions of the character singing it, and we discussed what certain lines meant.

• Comparing Stage and Screen: We checked out some video clips and photos from various productions of The King and I. 

• Other R&H King and I Production: We also watched a 1999 animated, kiddie version of The King and I, which added a plot twist or two and was fun to see for comparison's sake. 

• Lessons: I found an excellent Lincoln Center teacher's guide for The King and I. Some of it was aimed at older kids so I picked and chose activities that worked for us. For my 7-year-old, I particularly loved these parts of it:
• An introduction the the American Musical (page 10 of the guide)
• The first six minutes of this intro to Broadway: The American Musical series, narrated (of course) by Julie Andrews
• An activity to help us analyze the song "A Puzzlement" sung by the king in the movie (page 10 - 11)
• The history, which I summarized above, about the real people and place that this movie was based on (page 12 - 19)
• Learning about the "Book Musical," which Rodgers and Hammerstein first created with Oklahoma (a movie I decided not to watch with my 7-year-old because of the content and amount of innuendo, by the way) and the musical theatre building blocks: music, dance, and theater. We also here learned the names of some of the many jobs involved in making a Broadway show, from choreographer to lyricist to designers, composers, and orchestrators. (page 22 - 26)

• Culminating Project: Musicalize a Favorite Book: The Musical Moments writing activity, described in brief on page 27 of the Lincoln Center guide, inspired our culminating project for The King and I (and really for all the musicals we've studied): a song-writing mini unit. 
• First, we reviewed a bunch of musical numbers M already knew, having her name which characters sing them, what type of song they are, how the character is feeling/what they want in the song, and what important moment in the plot or "turning point" it occurs at. We used these examples: 
• "The Schuyler Sisters" from Hamilton
• "Part of your World" from The Little Mermaid
• "I Just Can't Wait to be King" from The Lion King
• "The Next Right Thing" from Frozen 2
• "I Have Confidence" from The Sound of Music
• "My Own Little Corner" from Cinderella
• "When will my Life Begin?" from Tangled
• After this review, we chose a story we wanted to try to imagine as a musical. We could have used any (non-musical) movie or even perhaps a picture book, but it was a good opportunity to spend some time with some wonderful chapter books we had recently read together, so I had her choose from among these three: 
• Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
• Clementine by Sara Pennypacker
• Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant
• Then I had her list a few moments from the book that she thought would be good to musicalize (i.e. important moments in the plot, or times that show what characters want or strong emotions. The moment could consist of interactions between characters or be just a moment of the character thinking to herself).  
• For each of the moments, she had to decide: which characters would sing it? What type of song would it be (fast, slow, funny, serious, etc.)? Would there be dancing with it, and if so what type (ballet, hip hop, etc.)? 
• Finally, she chose one moment and wrote a song to go with it! 
• If you were so inclined, or for older students, you could write it from scratch, like a poem, but for our purposes I had M choose a song she knew and change the words.  I was ready to offer as resources for this song lists from the Disney and other musicals she knew. But as it turned out, she had an amazing ability to pull a song out of the air that she felt had a beat or tone that matched her book moment she wanted to musicalize. I printed out the song as it was, and then next to the original lines she wrote her own new words. 
• Together we wrote a song to go with Beezus and Ramona-- a song about how Ramona is always getting into mischief without really intending to, and how her family helps her figure a way out of it somehow, that we imagined being sung by her sister Beezus, to the tune of "Whistle a Happy Tune" (a song from The King and I). 
• Then, more independently, M wrote a song for Gooseberry Park about Kona the dog's icy adventure across town to find and rescue his squirrel friends. She almost instantly thought of "Rhythm Nation" which she knows from the Camila Cabello modern Cinderella movie and wrote great lines such as "A ve-ry, ve-ry, ve-ry big risk!" in place of "Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm nation!"....and "I have to find you right no-o-o-ow" in place of "We are a part of the rhythm nation." 

A musicalized moment from a favorite young reader chapter book, Gooseberry Park

This unit was so much fun. The best part was when M told me in the midst of the song writing at the end of it that writing time-- which normally requires serious effort on her part and some cajoling on mine-- was "so fun right now."   

A few final notes:

We spent less time overall on State Fair because (in my opinion) it just isn't the timeless, magical work of art that the others are. But we still found some topics to study and had fun with the music.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein site has a list of all their shows and a wealth of information about each one, including photos and video clips, and lists of various productions. It is a great resource worth checking out.  

This unit was a good reminder to me of everything homeschool can be: interest-based, personalized, multidisciplinary, memorable, fun, project-based, hands-on...I want to do more unit studies like this! 

I hope if you try these units you have as much fun with them as we did and that your heart, too, will be blessed with the sound of music. :) 

Read Aloud and the Case for Picture Books

A lot of homeschoolers talk about family read aloud: gathering all the kids together-- from toddlers to teenagers-- and sharing great literature. This sounds lovely and I'd become curious about those perfect texts that would engage multiple ages at once.

We have always read to our kids a lot, and at bedtime, religiously. But we've mostly read to them separately, not together. I've got a kindergartner and a fifth grader, so they're at pretty different stages. (My 10-year-old reads to himself plenty all the time, but we still read aloud to him at bedtime-- I'll take it for as long as I can!) There are so many amazing books out there for big kids and it's always fun to choose what he and I will read together next. Currently my husband is reading a book from the 39 Clues series to W, while W and I have just begun The Phantom Tollbooth. While he listens, W likes to draw or color or, most often lately, work on pictures in one of his several Extreme Dot-to-Dot books. When I read to my five-year old daughter, on the other hand, we read High Five or Ladybug magazine or one of the seven hundred picture books we own. M is completely absorbed by the pictures and she sits in my lap or curls up next to me, scrutinizing every page and interjecting with questions.

But having both my kids home for the final months of this past school year helped me realize how valuable it is to find shared learning experiences for them-- things they can both access even with their age difference, even if they get different things out of them. I thought I'd try to make reading together a bit of a routine this summer and make an effort to find great read alouds we could all share. I tried reading a few classic novels aimed at a young audience to both my kids together. Here are a few thoughts on each of the ones we tried.

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The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams: Written in the 1920s, it's a magical story with a nice message. I think it's nice to read kids some books like this one that are written long ago. It helps give them get a taste for what childhood might have been like before their grandparents were born, and helps them take in language they aren't familiar with. Even with words like "brigands," this one is a story about a stuffed animal after all.

Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne: Some sweet humor that you have to be a bigger kid to understand and we found ourselves explaining to M some of the jokes that entire chapters were based on (like the spotted and herbaceous "Backson" that lives in the animals' imaginations after Christopher Robin leaves a note intending to say that he'll be "back soon"). But it is still an extra-lovable story. Some of the situations those friends get themselves into are so funny. The games they play, feelings they have, and "expotitions" they go on are beautifully child-like and relatable.

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Betty MacDonald: This was probably the biggest mutual hit with my kids. It was concrete (and formulaic) enough for my youngest but clever and funny enough for my oldest.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll: I have to admit we haven't yet finished this strange book. I'd never read it myself, though at many parts I can clearly visualize the Disney movie that I did see as a kid. Some of the strangeness is a hoot (following a rabbit down a hole one day out of boredom), and some is just strange and a little harder to follow.

A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond: My son loved Paddington (though he's also seen the very-good movie and it was a rare case where he liked the movie more) but my daughter got bored by the end. Sweet story about a London family taking in a bear who is always sticky with marmalade and gets into various innocent scrapes.

Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren: The sheer ridiculousness of it is fascinating. Here's a kid who lives on her own, plays with guns, doesn't go to school at all (not even remote or hybrid or homeschool!), who wins over burglars just by being herself, and is never afraid. But Pippi is so bold and fun. Maybe in some ways she embodies the inner wishes of kids-- rolling out cookie dough on the floor and living with a monkey and a pony and not having a bedtime. I'm glad we read it. While reading it, W was often making connections to some other favorite female protagonists I'm glad to say he's known and loved-- Anne (of Green Gables), Ramona, and Junie B.

Homer Price, Robert McCloskey: Like all Robert McCloskey books, it feels so very old-fashioned. W liked it. Each chapter is its own little story, entertaining and less than believable, with situations involving burglars and a pet skunk, a kid left in charge of a restaurant on his own, and prize-winning balls of yarn. There's a picture on every other page. M seems to like it and mostly follow along, but doesn't love it.

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The only "chapter" books I'd read to M before this summer were things like Frog and Toad, Henry and Mudge, and Mr. Putter and Tabby-- all of which she loves-- but each chapter is its own little story with the same characters and themes over and over, and the whole book can be read in one sitting.

W is always hooked by the novelty of any new story, and likes a good book, no matter what reading level it is. While he consumes big thick books like Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, he will also laugh out loud over The Berenstain Bears if one is left lying around. I knew he would enjoy almost anything.

Aside from Winnie-the-Pooh, the longer books we read together this summer were new for all of us. W and I loved them all-- turns out there's a reason they are classics. M liked...some of them. There were certain bizarre details she tuned into in Pippi Longstocking (she demonstrates to us at bedtime many evenings now how Pippi sleeps with her feet on the pillow and her head under the covers). And I think she was engaged for a lot of Winnie-the-Pooh and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. But I found I needed to stop often to try to keep M on the same page in the longer, picture-less books (some we listened to as audio books so they may have had pictures but we didn't see them). Sometimes she asked questions, or I would tell her what words meant, or have W share a simple inference when she didn't get what was happening, or we'd explain to her what was so funny when we laughed. I was reminded that, at five, M needs a story that's fairly concrete, especially when she has to visualize it all herself. When she looked bored or wasn't able to answer a basic story question if I asked her one, I thought, what exactly am I gaining here by sharing this "classic" with her at this stage? There were certainly things she got out of some of them. But there were enough things she missed that she didn't fully absorb the magic of these great stories. I remain convinced that it is a small, special niche of novels that really, truly work for the under-six set. (Other five-year-olds may have loved these stories or even more sophisticated ones; every kid is different.) A few months or a year from now M will be at a different stage and the types of books she loves will grow and change. But there's no rush.

Summer outdoor bedtime read aloud with W

All this has renewed my love and belief in quality picture books for all ages.

As a first-grade teacher I would sometimes have parent-teacher conferences in which a parent would worry about the skills of their blossoming child, saying they thought he was using the pictures in books to guess what the words said. Some of these parents would even say they covered up the picture to make their child focus on the words! But there is a reason pictures are in books for young kids: pictures support the text and help with comprehension and word solving (it's a great sign if a beginning reader is using every bit of information on the page and multiple strategies to figure out an unfamiliar word, including looking at the pictures). Pictures also help engage them and get them hooked on books in general, pictures supply detail and richness to the experience and the conversations you can have, and sometimes pictures even (often comically, intentionally) say more, or say something different than, the text. (Think of Mercer Mayer's Little Critter books and how funny they are specifically because of this contradiction between text and illustration.) Pictures in picture books are a big part of the art form, and of the experience of coming to know and love books for young kids. When I was in the classroom I only chose to read one or two novels to my students in a year because there were just so many good picture books I wanted to share and so little time.

I also believe in continuing to read picture books to upper-elementary age kids. Firstly, plenty of older kids still need the support of pictures for reading itself or to aid comprehension. Also, picture books are a nice little package that you can read in one sitting; you can quickly accumulate many stories-- each with its own plot, setting, themes, character traits, conflict, resolution, writer's style-- that are not only pleasant shared experiences, but provide lots of opportunities to discuss, analyze, and compare. (I love the simple concept of reading a Book a Day for older-- even high-school-age-- students for these very reasons.) Beyond those benefits that any good picture book has for bigger kids, some picture books are specifically aimed at kids in 4th, 5th, 6th grade and beyond-- I am thinking of the clever word play of Miss Alaineus, the dark historical fiction Rose Blanche, Dr. Seuss's social commentary in books like The King's Stilts, or the opportunities for interpretation in rich stories like Roxaboxen.

For now, if I want to sit with my two kids and read aloud, picture books are still best for us. I pause a few times while reading-- but not too much-- for discussion. I might direct a higher-level question toward W and a more basic one toward M (though I wouldn't point that fact out to them). (This might include predicting what will happen next at a key point, inferring (why do you think she stomped out the room?), describing what a character is like, noticing details in the illustrations, or talking about what the characters learned.) And I remind myself that hearing stories isn't the only thing they can do and learn from together. Just as worthwhile are things like art projects, the blanket forts they build, the desserts they concoct together to surprise us, and the songs they teach each other on their respective instruments.

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Multi-Age Picture Books to Read Aloud
Here are just a few favorite picture books that are rich and interesting enough for olders, but still digestible and engaging for youngers. There are so many to choose from!

• Beatrice's Goat, Page McBrier
• Toot and Puddle, Holly Hobbie
• Fireflies, Julie Brinckloe
• Too Tall Houses, Gianna Marino
• books by Bill Peet
• Leo the Late Bloomer, Robert Kraus
• Tops and Bottoms, Janet Stevens
• Mirette on the High Wire, Emily Arnold McCully 
• Strega Nona, Tomie dePaola
• Christmas Trolls, Jan Brett
• Violet the Pilot, Steve Breen
• The Empty Pot, Demi
• Owl Moon, Jane Yolen
• Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Mem Fox
• The White-Footed Mouse, Willem Lange
• Circus Ship and other books by Chris Van Dusen
• Ish, Peter H. Reynolds 
• and many more!

What are your recommendations for the best read alouds for multiple ages together, or for any age?