Michael and the Rockness Monsters' song 'SMILE' and a fun and interactive felt board

This activity would be a GREAT circle time activity for young kids. The kids and I went to see Michael and the Rockness Monsters a few weeks ago at Symphony Space on the Upper West Side in NYC and they were great! They had a new album out last month, called 'Monster's Ball' and it has some great music on it. When I listened to the album, I was inspired by the song 'SMILE' to make an interactive felt board. The song is a great song for any time but I imagined it being a really great song to use during circle time at school, daycare or preschool - or if you home school - to get kids into the learning mindset. This felt board would be a great accompaniment. It was super easy to make and needs no explanation. It's just felt, cut out faces, various hairstyles and some happy smiles and eyes. The fun part is that kids can make the faces happy or sad so it would also be a great activity to teach feelings. I tried to make as many different hairstyles as possible so that most kids would be able to identify with one of the hairstyles and skin tones. Of course, I'm sure many kids would choose to just have fun, give themselves grey or white hair and play around and it's supposed to be fun so why not?!

To see the board in action click into the video below.

https://vimeo.com/299085659

About Michael and the Rockness Monsters and the album 'Monster's Ball'

The New Jersey-based band have over ten years experience making music for families and this is their third album. Michael Napolitano, the founder of Rockness Music (a division of Preschool of Rock) is the lead in the band, equipped with a stylish horn section, funky grooves and a true rock-n-roll spirit. Michael's time creating records with, and designing instruments for the Blue Man Group is evident in the variety of percussion and instrumentation in the tracks. I, personally, was impressed when I saw them live. The variety of instruments that they use and every single band members' obvious passion in doing what they do was nothing short of inspirational - which is surely what you want in a children's band: to inspire children to love music.

Monster’s Ball is co-produced by Grammy winner Dean Jones and Michael Napolitano and was engineered By Dean Jones at No Parking Studio and mastered by Alan Douches at West Side Music. Michael’s younger daughters who have always had cameos on his records are featured throughout the album as proper backup singers. Other children from his Rockness Music classes also have their little voices spread all over the record, furthering its appeal to the youngest listeners.

A really fun song from the album, A Fish Named Dog, has just premiered on You Tube this past week and is definitely worth watching.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

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