The term got off to a great start with an interactive online performance from the highly entertaining Tim Brain, introducing children to instruments from around the world! Some Year 3 children said:
Scarlett – I loved hearing Tim play the ukulele, he was really funny!
Jessica – I liked it when we flew to Japan to play the drums.
Immy – I liked him playing the samba whistle, it was amazing!!
Children in Year 3 have been very excited to start learning to play ukulele as a whole class ensemble, building up from the basics of learning to name the parts of the ukulele and how to hold it correctly, to beginning to pick and strum the open strings. We particularly enjoy, ‘That thumb brush strum’ and a great version of ‘It’s raining, it’s pouring’ which includes a rap and dance breakdown in the middle!
In Year 4 we have been learning to play the Glockenspiels. The children learnt a new song and how to keep in time with the rhythm of the music.
Once they were confident they used these skills to learn how to play the song on the glockenspiels. The children loved learning about tempo and particularly loved challenging themselves with increasing the tempo of the song from 50% to 100%.
At the end of the module, the children rehearsed their song and performed it to the class.
In our music lessons, Year 5 have been answering the question – How does music improve our world?
We have listened to and considered three songs during the topic; Freedom, All Over Again, Do you ever wonder?
The children enjoyed learning and performing the songs as well as developing their ability to improvise and play along to the songs.
Year 6 have been focusing on the key question: ‘how does music improve our world?’ as a link to the social theme ‘music is a changemaker’. We have been listening and responding to a variety of songs such as ‘Disco Fever’, ‘La Bamba’ and ‘Change’. This has helped us to sing along by clapping and moving to the rhythms we have heard. We have used the glockenspiels to play along with the music which was a challenge at certain points! We have developed our performance skills by working together in groups to perform parts of the song.