Celebrating READ ACROSS AMERICA with Song!

We had a great READ ACROSS AMERICA Celebration today at school. Last year, we had a type of "carnival"--lots of activities for kids to do around books. It was a fun day and we all had a great time. This year, we decided to celebrate in a different way and it was even more fun!

The band RMT came to our school today to celebrate literacy through song. I had heard about what a great show this band does and I thought that reminding kids that songs tell stories made sense for the day. The band is a popular Central Ohio band and they have an amazing program called Songs of America. The show is almost an hour long and it tells the history of America through song. It was a GREAT way to celebrate literacy. First of all, the energy was amazing. The show has the feel of a very fun concert! The songs were put together to show the history of our country. As the band played, they told the pieces of history that were needed to understand the importance of the music they were sharing. Giant wall-size slides played behind them--showing the times and events in history that they were sharing.




Kids and teachers sang along, clapped along, and danced along. There was such a good balance of types of music shared. My favorite was the last song of the show that they wrote themselves called "American Song". (This is the last song on the clip below and also one that I am buying from iTunes next time I shop there.) The kids left smiling, laughing and, of course, dancing.

My ten-year old daughter saw this same show on Veteran's Day last year. I must say that this is a great show to celebrate any day. A great holiday show or a great show for anytime of year. This is a fun show for kids of all ages and for adults. The YouTube video below shows clips of the show but imagine 500 smiling, singing, dancing children in the audience when you watch it. If you have any money left for a show like this, I would definitely recommend getting them to your school or library.

I am trying to figure out how to do things like this on a smaller level in the school library having bands, artists, speakers, scientists, etc. in for school library events. A few whole school events like this one but then grade-level or interest-type events through the year during lunch recess, etc. So much learning and fun from events like these.

I think this was, by far, my favorite celebration of READ ACROSS AMERICA since the tradition began!