Little kids love a good story. Different cultures are full of great stories of creation, explaining science, and fairy tales. Many cultures also value the importance of music. Use this to your advantage. Books are great, but a good storytelling session, using the imagination, lights a fire in little kids........they'll talk about the story, its moral, and its theme for days.

Whatever your resource, read the story ahead of time. Don't worry about memorizing it word for word, but get the main idea so that you can put it in your own words, or better yet, words at the level of your youngsters. (After all, most of these are folk tales, and folk tales change from teller to teller!) Figure out what terms and characters may puzzle a child and either make substitutions or make sure you can come up with definitions to satisfy the younger set. This is especially true with multicultural stories. Also, if there are endings that might be a little scary or unsatisfying for your kindercrew, you can come up with suitable alternatives. (You don't think stories for younger kids are scary? What about all those Grimm fairy tales! The originals are a lot worse than Disney!!)

Figure out the musical elements involved and how you will reproduce them. Do you have a keyboard? The keyboard can be your sound effects...all in one instrument! I've used my keyboard for ocean sounds, bird sounds, and different instrument effects. If you have the instruments available, use them. You might want your kids to provide the effects! Most of them are so uninhibited, they'll probably do it anyway. Go for it!