A retired Guelph elementary school teacher has found a creative way to encourage kids to be kind while learning about new instruments with her new multimedia story, Something Nice: A Musical Tale.
As a former teacher, Beth Becker believes one of the most important lessons children can learn is to be kind.
“What idea do you want most to get across to kids? Be nice to each other, treat each other with respect, so that’s where I got the theme,” she said.
The story consists of an illustrated storybook, a song and an animated video, and shows the benefit of paying forward acts of kindness, starting with Freddy the Frog, who is stuck and needs help getting out of the water.
A bird saves Freddy the Frog when she hears him crying out for help. After, she sings the chorus, encouraging Freddy the Frog (and anyone else listening) to pay forward acts of kindness.
Inspired, Freddy helps a butterfly find milkweed and sings the chorus himself. The story goes on like that, with each new character passing on an act of kindness.
Freddy was inspired by her three-year-old grandson Grant.
“We have a pool here, and his favourite thing to do when I look after him is to go out to the pool and see if there’s any frogs that need rescuing,” she said. “There usually are, and we get a net and get them out. He’s just so thrilled with the whole process of (saving) the frog's life.”
So when she asked him what she should write her story about, he said there should be a frog who needs help getting out of the water.
But Becker also wanted the story to help expose kids to instruments they may not know about.
When she was a teacher, Baker was always looking for ways to teach kids about the instruments of the orchestra, but there weren’t very many tools at the time to help with that.
“My goal in life has always been to get people involved in music, whether it’s playing an instrument, singing, or even just listening,” she said.
So after each verse, a new instrument is introduced, from the glockenspiel to the marimba.
That way, “the kids can listen for it and guess what it is,” she said. “And then at the end of the story, I give them some information about those instruments.”
The song, written by Becker, was recorded by Guelph-based musician and audio/visual producer Joel Saunders, who also helped to add the various instruments.
“He’s just an incredible musician. He does a lot of tracks for my choirs, so he plays a lot of instruments and knows a lot about music,” she said.
The illustrations were done by Cambridge illustrator Leah McCreight, and Saunders helped bring her images to life with the accompanying video.
“It’s always more interesting for kids to be able to see something moving,” she said. “They’re just attracted to that.”
The video can be helpful for kids who don’t know how to read yet, as well.
When Grant watches it, she says he’ll turn the page along with the video, “so he’s getting the idea of how the story is moving and how to follow along.”
Those who purchase the book, available through Amazon, will get a hard copy mailed to them, as well as a link for the video and song.
While the experience of writing and self publishing a multimedia story was at times challenging, now Becker is hooked, and is already cooking up an idea for her next musical story.
