Mio’s Musical Round-the-World Trip

That day, the classroom was buzzing with excitement. The children were standing clustered around the desks, looking at big maps and atlases. Some of the maps were almost as big as the children! Luckily, Mio the elephant was with them. He used his big, strong feet to prop up the biggest atlas so that the little first year pupils could see the whole page.

They were looking at maps because they were busy learning about all the different countries of the world. Over the past couple of weeks they had listened with interest as their teacher told them that in some countries it is hot and sunny all the time, while some other countries in the far north are almost always covered in snow and ice. When he had heard that, Mio had shivered in horror. He preferred to be in the warm! Their teacher had also shown them on the map where in the world there were rainforests and where there were deserts. Mio and the children had learnt the names of lots of foreign countries and today they were looking for those countries in their atlases and trying to find out one interesting fact about each country.

After that, their teacher, Mrs Thompson, said: “Now, how would you all like to go on a little musical round-the-world trip with me?” She knew that Mio especially loved listening to music.

“Yay! Yes please!” the children responded excitedly, and Mio trumpeted in agreement.

Mrs Thompson smiled. “Right then,” she began. “Everyone sit down and let’s listen all together. I’m going to play you some traditional music from different countries all around the world. You can guess which country each piece is from and tell me what else you can remember about that country.”

The…