Song-stories from around the world, age 3-7 years, with activities for music and puppetry. By Helen East, Liz Waugh McManus, Mike McManus and Janet Koralambe. With double CD

The Singing Storycloth is a wonderful classroom resource suitable for children aged 3-7 years and no music reading is required. It consists of a collection of eight song-stories from around the world, collected and retold by Helen East. Every story has a theme related to fabric and is supported with activities for music and puppetry. Each story has a song as well, to give the rhythm of the tale and the taste of the country that it comes from.

To help visualise each story and encourage children to tell them, play with them and perform them with confidence, there are music and movement actvities and clever puppet ideas, including activities for making and using a variety of simple puppets. Various musical suggestions are also available for how the stories and songs could be used.

The activities are flexible and can be enjoyed in the classroom in the course of creative work in music, drama, DT, and language, but will also have the potential for short performances at assembly. The puppetry activities have been devised by a team of experienced performers and workshop leaders - Liz Waugh MacManus and Mike MacManus of Obelon Arts - and the musical activities by Janet Koralambe, music workshop leader and performer with Obelon.

The accompanying CDs have complete recordings of the song-stories, song performances plus a full set of backing tracks to accompany classroom singing and performance.