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Post by Alexa Rosenbaum, Toneworks intern

Though we have some old favorites that we can always fall back on, we therapists at Toneworks love discovering new books that can be used in our classrooms.  I rarely go out and buy brand new books, and because they are likely going to get worn down anyway I think that buying books used is a wonderful option.  My all time favorite place to find used children’s books is at library book sales (sale dates and times for Hennepin County libraries can be found here).  Hardcover books usually go for around a dollar and paperback for even less, plus these sales always have special deals going on so you will no doubt get a bargain!  A couple months ago I found Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin by Lloyd Moss at a library sale, and immediately snatched it up.  I remember this book from my childhood, and the music nerd that I was absolutely loved learning about different instruments in the orchestra.  I wanted to find a way to make it more engaging than just reading or singing through it, so I searched for visuals online and found some wonderful resources on this site .

After cutting and laminating the visuals above, I was eager to bring out this book in one of the Elementary ASD classrooms that we work with.  I distributed the visuals among the kids and as I read each page, I had them match the visuals to the pictures of the instruments and we laid them on the ground.  After each page we also counted the number of instruments, so we were working on musical knowledge as well as some academic skills!  This activity worked great for this particular group because they are all able to read, so if the instruments didn’t always look exactly like the one in the picture they could sound out the name and use that to match.  Overall, this book worked out wonderfully; the kids loved making their own orchestra and were able to utilize their math and reading skills all while learning about music!