Music and ICT at primary school

Whilst I use lots of technology tools in my music lessons - such as audioboo,garageband and social networks I have n't yet tackled teaching any of the ICT components. However that is set to change as I have agreed to teach the music element of the ICT scheme of work we follow. Just for one half term I am transforming the music room into an ICT suite with 30 netbooks, headphone and splitters. I already have an IWB and access to YouTube which is surprisingly uncommon! I plan to use 2simple music, audacity and garageband. I'm a little scared as I don't have much experience in teaching ICT but I think if I focus on the music objectives I will find my way. The good thing about doing it at the end of my first year is that each class has a bank of practical experiences with instruments such as djembes, recorders and boomwhackers that we can take as our starting point to record and begin to experiment manipulating. If anyone has any advice or suggestions please get in touch! I feel more confident knowing I have excellent member of staff at St teresa's that I can call on as well as the talented music teachers I follow on twitter for help. I will be keeping a record of how it goes on this blog so watch this space.

Learn to swim! - a song for school olympics

This is one of the Sing Up songs featured in their latest issue. Listen to year 3 sing it. They are going to be performing it for our Olympic opening ceremony. Please take a listen and leave us a comment. I am so proud of the children's performance. They worked really hard and made a big effort with their diction so you can hear the words clearly

listen to ‘Learn to swim!’ on Audioboo

Peter and the Wolf - puppet fun

Since my last few lessons on Peter and the Wolf I have found the children 'playing' Peter and the Wolf in the playground. This has inspired me to have a go at creating some puppets and setting up small world scenes for the children to act out. Ideally I would prefer to let the children make their own puppets but as I only see them once a week I don't have time. Next half term I am going to ask the children to introduce their own character into the story and to create its unique music. Am busy exploring simple music software that will help us do this. Think I will be able to use 2Simple Music. Watch this space! Meanwhile have a look at this shadow puppet version.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/588122

Peter and the Wolf

Peter's Grandfather is very grumpy.

He won't let Peter play out in the meadow. In todays lesson we are going to explore where Peter lives and work out what sort of a boy Peter really is. We might need to create a story map.

Bring your imagination and stay close.

Follow me....

Songs to celebrate the Olympics for primary schools.

I recently bought a copy of "Singathlon" from Portsmouth Music Service. It contains some great songs that could be used to support Olympic work that schools will be doing. I have chosen a couple songs for each year group in my schools to learn and one or two that the whole school will sing as part of our schools opening ceremony. There are one or two duds and I'm really not sure about "Losers like me" but they are outweighed by some cracking songs such as "Five United Rings" , "Triathlete" and "Bronze Silver and Gold".

It will be useful beyond the Olympics as many of the songs celebrate various sports.

I am planning to ask year 6 classes to make a video of themselves singing "5 united rings" cut with images of sporting images from the school. (We may even find ourselves singing "5 olympics ring"s who knows!)

I am also using the songs from the Sing up website that are featured in the latest issue of the magazine.

We should find out soon which children's song has won the competition to be Merton's official Olympic anthem. Fingers still tightly crossed it will be a St T pupil!

Peter and The Wolf

I have only just discovered the very fantastic stop start animation film "Peter and the Wolf" by Breakthru films. It was the 2008 Academy award winner for best animated short film.



Be warned it is quite shocking. Peter has a harsh lonely life with his scary Grandfather. There are some big changes to the story which I won't spoil for you but you know what - it really works!

The animation is absolutely remarkable, the attention to detail means you can watch it over and over and still find something new. It fits so well with the music.

I am planning to use it with my key stage 1 classes. The website has a really good education pack which you can download here

You can find further resources here

I am also in the process of creating my own slideshow which I will add to this post later.

In additionaI plan to show the children this beatboxing clip

This new orleans version is also worth a watch!