Like a Rock Star

Games/ContestsBattle of the Guitar Heroes.Borrow a Guitar Hero game and equipment, recruit someone familiar with the game tohelp you set up and play, and let aspiring rock heroes show their stuff! Individuals or small groups can play; you can work for high game scores, or just play for fun. Or, instead ofusing the game, how about a little air guitar to their favorite songs? You could give awards for style, costumes, choreography, etc. Warning—either way, this will get loud and rowdy!

Karaoke Contest. Bring in a karaoke machine with a collection of appropriate rock tunes and gather a panel of judges, as on the popular game shows, to determine the winners. Or let the crowd vote for their favorites.

Rock Trivia. Do you know that Jim Morrison was a published poet? Or why he named his band The Doors? (Both trivia questions have reading and literature tieins.) Trivia is ever popular, and rock trivia can be interesting to “kids” ages six through seventy! Gather a bunch of rock trivia questions and answers at varying levels of difficulty. Write one each day, or each week, on

a guitarshaped cutout and post it on a bulletin board. Challenge kids to find the answers. The first child (or set number of children) to turn in the right answer with a print, media, or on-line reference for the information might get his or her name listed with the answer on the board, anda small prize. Krull’s The Book of Rock Stars from the list below is a rich source of material,including information about Morrison’s poetry and the name of his band.

TreatsRock Star Delectables. Make a cake in the shape of a guitar. Party supply stores may have the cake pan to do this, or go to http://www.sugarcraft.com/ catalog/pans/novelty.htm. You can get cookie cutters in a guitar shape for cookies or sandwiches, or use a star-shaped cookie cutter.

Rock Candy. How about a little rock candy? Display it while it grows. There’s a good recipe, along with an explanation of the science involved, at www.exploratorium. edu/cooking/candy/recipe-rockcandy.html. Strengthen the theme connection by adding bright food coloring to the crystal compound and serving it on Rock Star theme plates or platters from a party supply store or the Party Supplies World Web site mentioned above.

Edible Microphone. With a little imagination, you can transform filled ice cream cones, especially pointed sugar cones, into cute edible microphones. Bake cake mix in cones and frost them with chocolate frosting and silver sprinkles, or bake mini cupcakes and fill the cones with one while letting a second sit on top for the rounded mouthpiece. Frosting smoothes the shape and adds appeal. Black licorice strands wrapped around simulate wires. You can substitute a popcorn ball for the cupcake.Reading/Writing ProjectsFan Letters. Have students write to their favorite living rock stars, explaining why they chose that person and inviting responses. Send the letters (look for addresses on the Internet or send in care of his or her recording company)and see who writes back! Use e-mail or take the opportunity to practice the vanishing art of thehand-written letter.

Letter Ladder. Kids can have some paper-and-pencil fun and build language skills with the Letter Ladder puzzle found at the end of this activity guide.

Lyrics to Live By. Introduce the book John’s Secret Dreams from the list below. Have kids write out lyrics to a favorite rock song that sends a useful

message or good advice about how to live or how to achieve a goal or a dream. Kids can read the lyrics to their song aloud andexplain why they chose those particular words.

Animal Rockers. Share stories like Larry, the King of Rock and Roll; Punk Farm on Tour; Babymouse: Rock Star; and Mr. Croc Rocks. Then invite children to create original animal rock stars, and write and illustrate short stories about them to share. Collect their stories and “publish” them in an anthology of Animal Rockers stories.

Arts/CraftsDraw the Music. Set up a learning center with paper, crayons or colored pencils, a CD player, and a mix CD with several different rock styles on it or several different CDs to choose from. Kids will choose a song to listen to several times, and then create a work of visual art that expresses something about the subject or mood of the music. Illustrations might show something mentioned in the lyrics or express feelings more abstractly. Have them identify the song at the bottom of the picture. Display the art work around the room. There’s a good breakdown of rock styles at www.rocklibrary.com/Gallery/default.aspx.Read Like a RockstarYour Rock Star Persona. Draw three to four different large guitar shapes and cut out enough copies from poster board or cardboard for your group. Patterns based on “Read Like a Rock Star” theme are available at the end of this activity guide or www.orientaltrading.com has affordable 8”X 24” cardboard white guitar shapes. Also provide patterns or cut-outs of different styles of sunglasses made from color transparency sheets, with construction paper and other craft supplies for decorating them. Invite kids to create their personal rock star personas by making guitars and shades that project just the right image for them. Extend this activity by havingthem draw designs for stage costumes that suit their images. Or provide a stock of suppliesand let kids “glam up” with temporary tattoos, glitter hair spray, body jewels, feather, boas, etc.Combine this with the Karaoke Contest above!

Design Your Own CD Label. Set out several interesting rock CD covers with a variety of designs. Provide paper, crayons, and basic craft materials and have kids create original CD covers for their favorite musical groups or styles. For a professional look, put their designs intoempty plastic CD cases, which are inexpensive and available at office supply stores, and display them.Shoe Box Guitar. Check out this Enchanted Learning instruction page for making a simple guitars with younger kids:

www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/Boxguitar. shtml. Or try this one for a simple tambourine: www. dltk-kids.com/crafts/music/mtambourine.htm.

Special Events

Rock Out! Invite a local DJ or use CDs and have an allages dance party using kid-friendly rock music. Or have a local dance teacher or student in a rock or hip-hop dance class come and show the kids some moves. Try a little freeze dancing, in which you play dance music, get everyonemoving, and then stop the music and say “Freeze!” Anyone caught moving after the call sits outuntil the game is over. Add a little karaoke, and have yourselves a rockin’ good time. A disco ball or strobe lights would take it over the top! This is probably not the time for anything as formal as booktalks, but you could certainly have a display in a corner with books, movies, or CDs relatedto the theme.

Rockin’ Readers Story Time. Combine activities in this guide to plan a rockin’ story time program. Monster Musical Chairs is a perfect set-up for a game of musical chairs using kids’ rock and roll music. Depending on your age group, Baby Brains Superstar, Punk Farm on Tour, Mr. Croc Rocks, My Family Plays Music, or appropriate excerpts from Hip Hop Speaks to Children would work well. Serve star or guitar shaped cookies, or some version of the Edible Microphones listed above. Make Shoe Box Guitars. Young kids love to play “dress-up.” Provide a box of funky sunglasses, feather boas, stick-on tattoos, colorful jewelry, glitter hair spray (to use only with adult help), and let kids go to it. Then play cuts from Hits for Kids and enjoy some free-form dancing. Of course, display appropriate books from your collection for kids to check out and take home. A good time will be had by all!

Math Activities

Memorize with Music. Music is a wonderful tool for memorizing facts and information that must be learned by rote. What children learn to sing, they remember easily. Introduce “Multiplication Rock” from the Schoolhouse Rock DVD in the list below, and set it up at aActivity Guide © 2009 Lab Safety Supply Inc.Read Like a Rockstarvideo station with headphones for independent work. Invite kids to listen and learn the songs as an aid to remembering the multiplication tables.

Rockin’ Subtraction. Read the book Monster Musical Chairs from the list below. Then use the book, and the extension activities at the end, to work on subtraction skills with early elementary children.

Science/Technology Activities

That Great Guitar Sound. Have a workshop for younger kids in which you make the Shoebox Guitars mentioned above. Bone up yourself or invite in an elementary science teacher to explain the basics of the science of sound—specifically, how the notes generated by plucking the strings reach our ears, and why different strings produce different pitches.That Great Guitar Sound II. Using the following resources, invite middle- to upper-elementary kids to explore the science of sound and the technology involved in creating electric guitars. Display a few science books that address the science of sound at or around a computer station. Appropriate titles might be Sound & Music by Jon Richards et al (Lerner, 1999, ISBN 0761332545), or Sound: From Whispers to Rock Bands by Christopher Cooper (Heinemann, 2003, ISBN 1403409560). Then bookmark this Web site: http://entertainment. howstuffworks.com/electric-guitar.htm, which includes an interesting video about how PRS guitars are made, from start to finish, as well as a visually rich look at the related science of sound and amplification.

History/GeographyRock Music Timeline. Make a timeline to display on a wall that shows some key events at the beginning. Invite kids to add events to the time line as they study the history of rock androll, or follow their favorite rock stars. A good chronology to get you started covers the 1950s and on at http://pages.prodigy.net/ cousinsteve/rock/feat4.htm, and another covering older events that contributed to the birth of rock at http://www.history-of-rock.com/rock_and_roll_timeline.htm.

Internet Activities Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Visit the Web site of the ultimate rock and roll museum in the country at www.rockhall.com. Kids can view slide shows of exhibits and see the complete list of inductees by year. 42Xplore Topic: Rock ‘n’ Roll Music. Bookmarkhttp://42explore.com/rocnroll.htm, where kids can read the basics about what this musical genre is, how it came to be, and work independently searching its many linked sites and completing suggested activities.

“Read Like a Rock Star” Resources• Attack of the Evil Elvises (Weird Planet #4) by DanGreenburg. Random House Books for Young Readers,2007. ISBN 0375833471. 2-5.• Baby Brains Superstar by Simon James. Candlewick,2005. ISBN 0763628948.K-2.• Babymouse #4: Rock Star by Jennifer L. Holm. RandomHouse Books for Young Readers, 2006. ISBN

0375832327. 2-5.• Bono: Rock Star Activist (People to Know Today) byMartha P. Trachtenberg. Enslow Publishers, 2008.ISBN 0766026957. 4-6.• The Book of Rock Stars: 24 Musical Icons that Shinethrough History by Kathleen Krull. Hyperion Books,2003. ISBN 0786819502. 4-6.Activity Guide © 2009 Lab Safety Supply Inc.Read Like a Rockstar• Boots and the Seven Leaguers: A Rock-and-Troll Novelby Jane Yolen. Magic Carpet Books, 2003. ISBN0152025634. 5+.• Camp Rock directed by Matthew Diamond. WaltDisney Studios Home Entertainment, 2008 (DVDfeature film). ASIN B001725ZD2. 2-5.• Expiration Date: Never by Stephanie Spinner. Yearling,2002. ISBN 0440415608. 3-6.• Hip-Hop Dancing by Joan Freese. Capstone, 2007.ISBN 1429601213. 3-6.• Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetrywith a Beat edited by Nikki Giovanni. SourcebooksJabberwocky, 2008. ISBN 1402210485. 3-7.• History of Rock ‘N’ Roll by Stuart Killen. ABDO &Daughters, 1989 (Six volumes.) Various ISBNs. 4-6.• Hits for Kids Volume 9 by Various artists. PhantomSounds & Vision. ASIN B00199PNTY. 2-5.• John’s Secret Dreams: the Life of John Lennon by DoreenRapp port. Disney Press, 2004. ISBN 0786808179.4+.• Larry, the King of Rock and Roll by Iris Rainer Dartand Joyce Broman. Putnam Juvenile, 2007. ISBN0399245464. 4-6.• Monster Musical Chairs by Stuart J. Murphy. Harper-Collins, 2000. ISBN 0064467309. K-2.• Mr. Cool by Jacqueline Wilson. Kingfisher, 2004.ISBN 0753458225. 1-2.• Mr. Crock Rocks by Frank Rodgers. A & C Black Publishers,Ltd., 2009. ISBN 0713684224. K-3.• My Family Plays Music by Judy Cox. Holiday House,2003. ISBN 0823415910. P-3.• Pay the Piper: A Rock ’n’ Roll Fairy Tale by Jane Yolenand Adam Stemple. Starscape, 2006. ISBN0765350416. 6+.• The Princess & the Pauper by Kate Brian. Simon Pulse,2008. ISBN 1416953698. 5-8.• Punk Farm on Tour by Jarrett J. Krosczka. Knopf Books

for Young Readers, 2007. ISBN 0375833439. P-2• Rapunzel: A Groovy Fairy Tale by Lynn Roberts. HarryN. Abrams, 2003. ISBN 0810942429. 3-6.• Schoolhouse Rock Special 30th Anniversary Edition starringBob Dorough. Walt Disney Video, 2002 (DVDcollected episodes). ASIN B00005JKTY. 1-6.• Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock & Roll byHolly George-Warren. Sandpiper, 2004. ISBN0618432299. 4-6.• Worst Band in the Universe by Graeme Base. HarryN. Abrams, 1999 (Book and music CD). ISBN0810939983. 4+.