Thursday, February 23, 2012

"Listen, listen..."



I had some fab lessons with year 1 this week using the song "Listen, listen" to distinguish between pulse and rhythm.

Have a listen as they sing the song and mark the pulse on the drum.

Marking the pulse (mp3)



Here you can listen to the class tap out the rhythm. They used their thinking voice to help them.

tapping out the rhythm (mp3)

The children wer able to mark the pulse on the lyrics by drawing a heart in the right place. using our pitch staircase a few children were able to work out the tune from the numbers!

There are some exceptionally talented children in Merton! Well done year 1! And a big thank you to the grown ups who helped me assess!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

A song for St Teresa

This is my first attempt at songwriting! Written especially to celebrate the children and staff of St Teresa's. Have listen to year 4 Young Song Leader Anna, from St Matthews, singing it.


"We all play a part" (mp3)

Friday, February 17, 2012

Howard Goodall explaining the pentatonic scale

I am going to show this to my year 3 classes to show the universality of the pentatonic scale.


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

ArtsBeat 2012 - ideas for Poplar

Hello Poplar staff!

Please could you look at the resources below. Basically I have a presentation for you to use to help your classes listen to some music. Below that are some suggested music choices for you to work on. Next is an example of my "Musical Show & Tell" Finally there is a clip of the song I would like us to use as our ArtsBeat2012 anthem. In addition I have also prepared notes for you which I will email around and i will eventually put up here as a pdf.

1. Listening presentation


Here are some pieces I thought we could listen to.

This for yr 5 &6



This for yr 3 & 4


Yy 1 & 2



See my notes for ideas to

Write the music
Draw the music
Model the music
Film the music
Move to the music
Research the music

2. Musical Show and Tell

Wouldn't it be great if the kids could share music that means something with us? The boo below is just an example of how it could work.
Musical show and tell (mp3)


3. ArtsBeat 2012 Anthem


I plan to teach the whole school this song. It would be great if we could sing it every day during ArtsBeat week. Please have a listen and let me know what you think!

Singing All Together - Junior Voiceworks (mp3)

I would really appreciate some feedback on this! Do you think it is manageable and is there anything else you would like to see?

Music learning Live!



Have found a fantastic conference to go to on Monday 12th March. It is called Music Making Live and is at The Institute of London on 12 & 13th March.

There will lots of important policy stuff and music hub discussion but frankly that is not my motivation for going. firstly, I want to find some primary school teachers I can learn from and secondly the practical sessions look fantastic. Have a look here at the workshop sessions on offer:

Monday's programme

I am having big problems deciding. Boomwhackers, Kodaly, vocal percussion and charanga all appeal.

Persuade your head to let you out of the classroom for a day - good luck.

To book click here

And if you are going along, or you have been along in the past, please leave me a comment below.

By the way, I am getting a free ticket because I wrote an article for the magazine and a comment piece. I need to say a big thank you to my head, Mr Dachtler who is letting me go as the cost of supply for a day is not cheap.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Fly pie!


Fly pie! (mp3)

Here is an extra verse to the Sing Up song, "The cat sat on the mat".

I wonder what flavour pie it was?

Well done year 1 for a great verse. Have a look at the posts below to see all the other verses they created!

A nice dog!


Nice dog! (mp3)

I wonder what the dog saved the frog from?

A fox on a box?


Fox on a box (mp3)

Another great verse from year 1 to add to "The cat sat on a mat "song!

The fish that had a wish!


fish wish (mp3)

Well done year 1! Great extra verse.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Yr 3 rhythm work



Thank you Tracey king for sharing your work with us!

Monday, February 6, 2012

Crazy music!



Will be showing this to my keystage 2 classes. Thank you to Chris Hutchins (AKA @musicedlife on twitter)

GarageBand



I have just discovered garageband! It is so brilliant. I am really keen to use it in class. I only have my own ipad so the kids will have to be patient.

I spent most of sunday playing with it and have managed to write my first song.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Year 1 have written some new verses!

Year 1 enjoy singing along to the Sing Up track "A cat sat on a mat" . They are very good at rhyming so they decided to have a go at making their own verses. They have made a picture and recorded themselves singing. If you have a minute please could you have a listen and leave us a comment.

Which is your favourite verse and why?








A pig did a funny jig (mp3)

A fly flew in my eye (mp3)

A mouse lived in a house (mp3)

A dog jumped on a log (mp3)A mole lived in a hole (mp3)

A sheep with big feet (mp3)


This is what Blue class did last week