Ukulele Club have continued to meet each week. It has been really lovely to have one of the children, Poppy, writing out the chords to a couple of songs and teaching these to the rest of the group including Mr Hardy!
Mr Oparaocha, who joined us as a Teaching Assistant in Year 5, is an extremely talented musician and has started Lower and Upper School choirs which are proving very popular with the children.
In Year 3 the children have begun to learn the ukulele, which they will continue with now until the end of the school year. They have learned to name the parts of the ukulele (It has a body, neck and head – but it’s got no arms and legs!), how to hold the instrument correctly, playing different rhythms by strumming and some quite tricky picking patterns. Finally, the children were introduced to their first chord (C major)! Everyone is giving it their best effort and as a year group they are making very quick progress.
The children in Year 4 have explored a number of songs from different genres including disco, folk and classical. They have sung together and also had their first taste of playing the recorder! Pupils have also composed their own pieces of music to fit a backing track using an app in charanga to drag and drop notes on to the stave – improving their recognition of traditional musical notation.
Year 5 in Spring 2 have been using the website https://www.norfolkmusichub.org.uk/ ‘Charanga’ to create their own piece of Hip Hop music using ‘YuStudio’. The children have all really enjoyed creating their own pieces and listening to others. By following the videos children have added in a range of drum beats, bass and chords. Some children have included other musical instruments as well as adding in melody sections to their piece. Some have been continuing on at home using their log ins which has been great to see!
Year 6 have been focusing on the key question: ‘how does music teach us about our community?’ as a link to the social theme ‘music is a builder of community and guardian of cultural identity’. We have been listening and responding to a variety of songs such as ‘Let’s Rock’, ‘Simple Gifts’ and ‘Friendship Should Never End’. This has helped us to sing along by clapping and moving to the rhythms we have heard. We have developed our performance skills by working together in groups to perform parts of the song.