It has been a exciting and busy term as we have been learning several different musical skills such as aural (listening and repeating clapping and singing patterns), composing, singing and playing percussion instruments.  

Foundation students have learnt to sing and play two songs, Cows in the Kitchen and Frère Jacques using a variety of untuned percussion instruments including, tambourines, triangles and castanets. In recent weeks they have been introduced to chime bars, which are tuned instruments. Each week we have been focusing on a different musical concepts such as sound & silence, soft & loud and beat. Using this knowledge, students have begun to create and compose simple music sequences, sharing them with their peers. 

Year 1 students have learnt the song Kye Kye Kule. They sang and used untuned and tuned percussion instruments including triangles, shakers, chime bars and boomwhackers rotating between each part to perform as a class. Students have begun to compose a piece of  music using different musical instruments to represent different animals, and used their own forms of notation such as zig zag lines or ascending dots. 

In Year 2, students have been learning Charlie Over the Ocean, a silly song that can be sung while playing a game very similar to Duck Duck Goose. The students have enjoyed taking turns being the leader and leading the chant while their classmates echo back the lyrics. Once they learned the words to the song, they had the opportunity to learn different instruments to played along with the song, including chime bars, boomwhackers, triangles, xylophones and shakers. Every lesson, we practise listening to different elements of music, especially pitch and rhythm. After listening carefully to a piece of music, we try to echo back what we have heard using either our voices or body percussion.  

The Year 3s have learned to play untuned and tuned percussion instruments to accompany the song A Ram Sam Sam. They used their understanding of pitch to identify which notes were higher and lower and the correct notes to play on the chime bars when learning the music for both the xylophone and glockenspiel parts. Students thoroughly enjoy developing their skills in Aural lessons as they take turns being the teacher and singing or clapping a melody or rhythm for their peers to echo back.

In Year 4, the students have been expanding their knowledge of pitch, rhythm and tempo through singing, body percussion and instruments. We have been learning the song Tafta Hindi, which the students were surprised to learn is an Arabic folk song about the marketplace. Using scenes from Aladdin as inspiration, students worked in groups to choreograph dance moves to be performed alongside the song. They then learned untuned percussion instruments and worked together to create a whole class ensemble. 

The Year 5s and 6s have been learning about the different elements of music. They shared their common understandings of elements such as pitch, rhythm, dynamics, tempo and timbre at the beginning of the term and each week, we have further developed this knowledge through both our ‘Aural’ and ‘Sing and Play lessons’. Students have learned to sing different songs familiarising themselves with the lyrics and melody, then adding accompaniments of both tuned and untuned instruments to create an ensemble piece. Students are also learning to make connections with music in our world, listening to different genres and artists. They learned about the role of a conductor and different instrument families within a symphony orchestra as they watched a performance of The March from Star Wars. Students described how it made them feel and had the opportunity to move around the space in a way that suited different parts of the piece eg fierce marching, smooth movements, calm, energetic. We discussed that music is used to create a mood and evoke emotions and particular instruments help to contribute to this.