Submitted by Lisa Wiggins, Waynesboro, Georgia

Idea posted March 11, 2010

I really wanted to stress to my 2nd graders during MIOSM, that one of the greatest benefits of having music in school is that you get to be creative and use your imagination. We began by listening to Peter Yarrow's version of "Puff, The Magic Dragon" as we followed along with his book (by Yarrow and Lenny Lipton). Then, we discussed the story and how dragons were created with imaginations. We talked about the different types of dragons in history. Next, we listened to another song with a dragon theme and had the kids describe what THAT dragon looked like in their imagination. I allowed the kids to draw and color whatever kind of dragon they could create. While they were drawing, we continued to listen to dragon songs.

The next class, we shared our dragons and discussed their attributes. Then each kid got to pick an instrument and play it in a manner that matched their dragon's personality. The kids assigned a name to their dragon and then wrote a rhythmic pattern to match the syllables in the name. In the end, we hung the pictures and names (with the rhythms) all around the room during MIOSM.