Here are two poems and two exercises--enjoy!

Try the exercise yourself first before giving it to your class.

I'd love feedback on how the exercises worked for you and how they can be improved or ways you found to extend the lessons.

Thank you!
April

TAKING VIOLIN AT SCHOOL by April Halprin Wayland
	I open my case tighten my bow pluck a string to tune. I love to listen to it chirp across the echoing room. My friends are in class reading about a famous English king. But I am training this wooden bird upon my arm to sing.
Taking Violin at School illustrated in the April 1995 issue of Cricket Magazine by Ellen Beier she can be reached at: ellenbeier@yahoo.com (If you wish to contact this illustrator, please phone or FAX her at: (541) 766-8329. Note that this is her home...contact her during business hours. She lives in Oregon, USA, in PST.)

first published in CRICKET Magazine, April 1995
also appears in GIRL COMING IN FOR A LANDING  (Knopf, 2002)