This guest post is from Milenka Coronel Samey, the Assistant Director of Resident Services at AHC Inc., an affordable housing nonprofit in Arlington, Virginia. AHC’s Summer Camp program is designed to prevent learning loss — a particular challenge for low-income students — through both educational and enrichment experiences.
This summer, during our six-week literacy program, our theme was Disney. We watched a new Disney film each week and did corresponding activities. In conjunction with these activities, we incorporated several books and activities from Start with a Book’s Tune In! music toolkit. This toolkit allowed us to teach about music and culture in fun and unique ways.
One week, we watched “Encanto,” which is a favorite among the kids. That same week we read Ada’s Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay. The students loved the story and found it amazing that materials could be reused and repurposed on a large scale.
That week was the children’s favorite activity: making their own recycled instruments. In the spirit of incorporating Colombian culture, we chose to make maracas as our recycled instruments. We used recycled Gatorade bottles that the children had saved from a previous week’s field trip, rice, and paper scraps to create their own maracas. After making the maracas, the students also had a chance to listen and learn about how different amounts of rice or different materials resulted in maracas with different sounds.
Using the books and activities from Start with a Book, the students had the opportunity to learn about music history, new cultures, and the ways in which music can inspire positive change in our lives.This summer, during our six-week literacy program, our theme was Disney. We watched a new Disney film each week and did corresponding activities. In conjunction with these activities, we incorporated several books and activities from the Tune In! toolkit from Start with a Book. This toolkit allowed us to teach about music and culture in fun and unique ways.
