Grade Level: Grades K-5 |
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What's in the show?
Songwriter and performer Alden Phelps delights in creating far-fetched and funny scenarios, bringing them to life in song with creative expressions and unexpected rhymes in this lively performance. Students are encouraged to sing along with his original songs such as My Mommy's A Pirate and Chocolate Pie.
The objectives are:
to engage students in creative thinking and associations.
to inspire students to explore and use language for greatest effect.
Using songs and audience participation, Word Play gets students rooting through the English language to bring to life the rhythms and rhymes of "Mad Lib" style songs and musical word games.
Alden performs songs accompanied with guitar or keyboard, featuring:
Word play, silly scenarios and creative rhyming (Am I in Trouble?, Monster)
Energetic humorous songs (Mom's Cellular Phone, Chocolate Pie)
Word Play will inspire students to play creatively with language through songs, games and challenges.
Alden sends up an earful of zany songs and zippy guitar-ifications, while students gleefully sing along to Ted the Rhino and laugh out loud at Be Careful with My Mega-Droid Robot. Songs and fast-paced word games explore writing concepts including simile and metaphor, point of view, and inspire the joy of playing with language.
Animal songs such as Everybody's Wakin' Up, colorful visuals and stories give students a fun appreciation of life on a farm. Alden, who really lives on a farm, also leads students in The Breakfast Game and the Where Did it Come From? Game, which help students see the central role that farms play in the food we eat and the clothes we wear.
contact Alden with any questions
Rhyme - correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words, esp. when these are used at the ends of lines of poetryz
Thesaurus - a book that lists words in groups of synonyms and related concepts.
Rhyming Dictionary - a book that lists words and all equivalent words with corresponding sounds between the endings of those words.
Couplet - two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit.
Improvise - create and perform (music, drama, or verse) spontaneously or without preparation.
Synonym - word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language.
Apples to Apples, Scattergories, Outburst, Scrabble, Quiddler, Jotto
Possible answers (multiple answers are possible for a few of these):
1. Doberman
2. Audi
3. Gigi
4. Bagel
5. Bobby
6. Tiger Woods
7. Bran Flakes
8. Honolulu
9. Hacksaw
10. Sound of Silence
Answers:
1. Birth Day
2. Barn Door
3. Blue Dog
4. Barbie Doll
5. Big Deal
6. Bob Dole
7. Blue Danube
8. Boxing Day
9. Bob Bylan
10. Below Deck
Puzzle ideas originally by Will Shortz, I think.
© 2007 Alden Phelps