Once upon a time long long ago in a faraway country called Russia, a famous composer called Sergei Prokofiev wrote a story using musical instruments.
The story was about a boy (a violin) who lived with his Grandfather (a bassoon) in a clearing in a forest in a house surrounded by a garden. One day, Peter went out into the nearby meadow, leaving open the garden gate. He heard a little bird (a flute) chirping in the trees. A duck (an oboe) followed Peter into the meadow and began to swim in the pond but a cat (a clarinet) comes along and begins stalking the bird and the duck. Peter warns them to fly away before the cat can catch them and the bird flies to the tree and the duck swims to safety in the middle of the pond.
Just then Grandfather arrived and found Peter in the meadow. He told him off for being too close to the forest where the hungry wolf lives so they walked back to the house and shut the gate just in time! As the wolf (three French horns) appears out of the forest the cat dashes up the tree where the bird is hidden but the duck who is paddling on shore is gobbled up in one gulp.
Peter, watching from the gate, grabs a rope and climbs from the garden wall into a tree and while the bird distracts the wolf, he lowers the rope and loops it around the wolf’s tail so that the wolf is caught tight. Peter ties the wolf to the tree.
At that moment some hunters come out of the forest to shoot the wolf dead, but Peter persuades them to help him take the wolf to the zoo, and with the cat, the bird and hunters marching behind him Peter leads the way; even the duck is quacking inside the wolf’s tummy (alive and just waiting for the wolf to fall asleep so he can creep away).
Ask your mum or dad to help you find a good version of this story with the musical sounds on Youtube.
Esther Lafferty's Inkwell 