With all the book posts I have, I thought I’d start a new series. Musical Books will take one awesome book and look at it, break it down to use in the classroom, and give you some teaching ideas. The first book in my Musical Books Series is Pan de Sal Saves the Day. This is a great book for the music classroom, featuring Filipino culture, music, and a strong social emotional learning component about confidence and honoring parts of yourself. I was talking about this book to the LUCKE chapter and realized I don’t talk about this book enough because I really love it for multiple reasons.

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The Book

This book features Pan de Sal (and her school mates also named for baked goods) and what happens when they go on a field trip. This book is a great lesson for social emotional learning as well as a wonderful book to highlight culture of the Philippines, and remind your students that all their voices are important. I personally love that a large part of this book features music as well so it is a perfect tie in for music class.

This book is also bilingual English and Tagalog so if you have students who speak Tagalog at home this would be a great tie in for them! This is also a first prize, short story for children winner for the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in the Philippines.

Author: Norma Olizon-Chikiamco
Illustrator: Mark Salvatus
ISBN: 978-0804847544
Buy the book on Amazon

Music

In this book, Pan de Sal sings Kundiman songs she knows from home to entertain her classmates. This is a great introduction to the Filipino genre. They are traditional Filipino ballads, often with a romantic theme. They are comparable to art songs in Western Classical music. Francisco Santiago and Nicanor Abelardo were two well known composers of such work.

Other Things

Culture:

This book introduces several aspects of Philippine culture including food, games, style of traditional homes. It talks about the music as well as food, games, and music. The aspects of her culture are what help her and her classmates out when they are stuck with a broken down bus.

Social Emotional Learning:

At the beginning of the book, we find Pan de Sal ashamed of her culture. She does not feel as though it is as nice as the fancy parts of her classmates, right down to her appearance. She is shy about her voice despite wanting to be in Glee Club. Her family is poor and she does not have fancy things, electronic entertainment, or even running water. When the bus breaks down and the things she has with her on their field trip – her food, her sipa, and her musical knowledge – become things she can share, she begins to feel more confident about herself. Her classmates are receptive and supportive throughout the book.

In the end, Pan de Sal learns to appreciate the wonderful things about herself and her culture that she can bring to the table.

The message of confidence is great for young students who may be shy about auditioning for things, or participating with their singing voices and this ties nicely to the musical aspect of this book.

Resource

This is a resource is great to leave for a sub! Includes:

• Composition worksheets with stick and regular notation with the characters’ names. 
• Writing prompts for students on how they could save the day, or their reactions as if they were a student that got stranded.  Listening – This book doesn’t disappoint for great examples. Pan de Sal sings 3 kundiman songs to her friends and a Filipino folk song. Includes listening links for the four songs that Pan de Sal sings in the book.
• Listening Reactions – Listening worksheets for the 4 songs in the book.
• Learn some Tagalog! Even as a dual language book with English and Tagalog on each page, some of the words Pan de Sal uses are strictly in Tagalog. This offers a great way to introduce some very important cultural things in the Philippines.
• An introduction to play sipa – It’s a favorite children’s’ game with variations that turned in a professional sport. This could be a great outdoor activity or cross curricular activity with Physical Education Class.
• Word search – a word search of the characters’ names for early finishers or subs.
• Posters to show what each of the pastries the characters are named for in the story look like.
• Image to introduce the banduria, a folk instrument from the Philippines that is used in one of the listening examples. 

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I hope this gives you a lot of ideas on using Pan de Sal Saves the Day in the music classroom!