Author Archives: Miss Lynch

This week in reception, we worked out how many syllables are in our names and individually clapped our names as we went round the circle. Afterwards we made rhythms playing them on our instruments. Taking it in turns to verbalise the rhythm while playing them on our classroom percussion instruments. 

In Year 2’s music lesson we played ‘I have got the Ball’ and ‘Hey, Hey, Look at Me’ where all the children took turns to choose an Animal and sing ‘Hey, Hey Look at me, I’m an (animal) can you see’ – followed by a corresponding action. It was brilliant to see how the class listened to each other and challenged one another.

Year 3 was looking at Scat singing and improvisation in Jazz music. We used a C Major ii V I jazz backing track to improvise using scat singing. Firstly the class took it in turn to copy the improvised phrase, using scat syllables. Then the class extended this by the leader ‘asking the children a musical question’ and the children scatting an answer – something that followed on from the question phrase but was different.

Year 5 were working in small groups to create free improvisational music and creating a groove, with tuned and untuned classroom percussion. Some fabulous music was created.

In our Nursery music lesson last week, we listened to the story of Peer Gynt and the Mountain King, with a musical accompaniment of Edvard Greig’s piece ‘ In the Hall of the Mountain King’ we physically responded to the music in the story and ran away from the king in time with the spooky music.

Year 1 had a listen to some jazz improvisation before trying some improvisation themselves – in the form of Question and Answer phrases, working as a team with one another to create some really lovely improvised musical phrases.

This week Year 4 was also getting creative in music. After practising how to write rhythmic notation on a stave accurately, we created 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 rhythmic phrases, think of it as creative musical maths!

At the end of lower KS2’s phase assembly we sang ‘You Shall Go Out With Joy’ which was full of joy and was sounding great!

In Reception this week, we focused on Rhythm in music. First they had to listen to a song they knew very well (Baby Shark) and see if they could guess which song it was, just by hearing the rhythm. Afterwards we all had a turn playing the rhythm of Baby Shark on classroom percussion while we also sang along.

Year 2 played a whole class game, ‘I have got the Ball’ – with a big focus on pitch matching in our solo singing. Each child in the class solo sang twice, independently within the singing game. It was brilliant to see them all trying to match pitch with one another. 

Year 3 were working individually, transcribing do, re, mi sequences that were played on the glockenspiel. This week they were using dot notation to capture the music.

This week in Year 5 we listened and made notes on Britten’s ‘Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’ video to understand the construct of the western orchestra, and hear all the instruments in the orchestra to understand their sound quality, and the different family categories of instruments, with  their similarities and differences. After this they demonstrated their ability to read and play short rhythmic phrases at sight from prepared cards – using conventional rhythm notation on Djembes.

In early years this week we were focused on body percussion and creating sound with our bodies. Firstly we practised the macarena and getting used to moving our bodies. Then we passed the clap around the circle before singing and performing the rhythmic ostinato from ‘We will Rock You’ by Queen. 

This week in Year 1 we started to understand and differentiate between a rhythm pattern and a pitch pattern. Rhythm is the pattern of beats (in a song – how the words go) and the pitch is how high or low the sound is, which creates a melody. We added pitch to our rhythmic patterns on glockenspiels.

Year 4 were learning a lullaby ‘Suo-gan’, after identifying the genre we all swayed in time with the music, before identifying the different rhythmic phrases in the piece. Once we had identified all three, and how they differed from one another, we split the class into three groups and each group was responsible for their rhythmic pattern. After this we listened to some examples of different Ostinato’s (repeating musical patterns) that can be played alongside the melody, to contribute to the arrangement.

In Hymn Practice this week we sang our School Hymn followed by Amazing Grace which reminds us of God’s unconditional love and grace for us.

In Reception this week we got really good at using our ‘empty voices’, demonstrating our ability to internalise music or sing in our heads. We practised this alot when we sang B.I.N.G.O – after we’d put all the letters into our empty voice, we then put all the words into our empty voice as well.

Today in Year 2 we learned a new song called Frosty Weather that includes a folk dance where we all go round in a circle and walk in and out in time with the music. After this we played the Poisoned Rhythm Game (Don’t Clap this one Back) in a circle using classroom percussion – passing  the rhythm round the circle, if you played ‘don’t clap this one back’ , people don’t copy you, 4 ta’s and it changes direction around the circle, sh, sh, sh, ta – skip a turn.

In Year 3 we were creating rhythms and applying word chants to them, understanding how to link each syllable to one musical note. We had some really brilliant examples. 

Matthew wrote ‘fish and chips fill my belly – ti-ti, ta, ti-ti, ti-ti’

Christina wrote ‘I’m in St Damien’s Class – ta, ta, tikatika, ta’

Andre wrote ‘I am very strong – ta, ta, ti-ti, ta’

Today Yr 5 demonstrated their ability to read and say short rhythmic phrases at sight from prepared cards – using conventional rhythm notation. After this we learned the first hand signals for free improvisation ready for next half term.

In Hymn Practice this week we sang ’Blest are you, Lord, God of All Creation’ and the Communion Hymn ‘This Is My Body’ concluding the singing of all our Spring 1 Hymns.

In Nursery, Reception and Year 1 this week we have been practicing all our Nativity songs and getting ready for the upcoming Nativity and Christmas performances. It’s sounding pretty good and we’re making sure our actions are on point!

This week in Year 2 and Year 3 we were getting into the festive spirit and learning how to play Jingle Bells on boomwhackers (2) and the recorder (3). We’ve been learning some new notes in order to get the tune just right and some of us are almost performance ready! 

Year 5 we were working as a class, writing a collaborative composition based on a Ternary form. Ternary form is like a sandwich so we made sure the middle section was more delicious or interesting than the bread sections.

This week’s music lesson in Nursery saw us get the percussion instruments  out to keep the pulse to Radetsky’s March. We also marched around the room. Our coordination is really improving for our instrument playing. 

In year 2 we listened to Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird Suite’ to analyse how another composer responded to the non-musical stimulus of fire. We also thought about how the music made us feel and drew pictures of how we felt fire was depicted in the piece . We are going to be presenting our final Fire composition next week.

This week in Year 4 we were sightreading Jingle Bells and playing them on the Glockenspiel. We were practicing our recall of all our treble clef reading, sight reading and becoming familiar with how the notes translate onto the instrument, all while getting into the festive spirit.

Year 6 are having a brilliant time composing Ternary pieces. Music in a ternary form is a bit like a sandwich with a repeated section at the beginning and end (the bread) and another different section in the middle – like a sandwich filling! We are writing our compositions on manuscript paper – combining all our theoretical and practical/aural music knowledge. 

This week’s Reception classes were practising their Nativity songs and all the actions… which are all sounding really good! We also learned ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ through call and response – demonstrating an ability to reproduce the pitch of a tone sung by another, We also played some different musical games after our practice.

In Year 1 we played some singing games that involved us reproducing with our own voice the pitch of a tone sung by another, and solo singing. We played ‘I have got the Ball’ and ‘Doggie Doggie.’ 

During ‘I have got the ball’ each child in the class solo sang and demonstrated their accuracy level of pitch matching when singing.

Year 5 started creating melodies from phrases we created as a class – ready for the chords next week. We decided to work in G Major – child led suggestion, so we could include our key signature learning from last week.

This week in Nursery we sang all our Nursery Rhymes from cue cards, linking the picture to the lyrics of the song. We were also thinking about the heart beat of the music we are singing. Then we played  a musical game, where we marched around the room pretending to be a train that falls off the track!

In year 2 we were making music to a non-musical stimulus. We did this by looking at images of London’s Burning. We thought about the mood of the piece, how people might be feeling and some of the sounds the image might have created if it came alive! We then created a soundscape from all our ideas. We also sang London’s Burning in a round.

Year 4 continued to learn about the major scale and how to write it on the stave from C – on our manuscript paper. Remembering it’s just like a ladder that we climb – space, line, space, line, space…

Year 6 were looking at how Key Signatures work and understanding that knowing what the major scale sounds like is really helpful when transferring it into reading music. Key signatures tell us which sharp or flat notes we need in a scale to make it Major or Minor. Tricky stuff!

This week in Early Years we got out the classroom percussion instruments and practised playing instruments while we sang songs we know. Playing the triangle while singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star sounded really beautiful, and twinkly like the stars. 

Year 1 were responding to the pulse in the music they listened to by moving and dancing to the piece.We listened to music of lots of different genres – classical, disco and folk. Dancing to match the music. We also marched to the pulse of a new rhyme we learnt and sang our performance piece from this half term ‘The Big Ship Sailed on the Alley Alley Oh’.

In year 3 the recorder saga continues – this week we built on our knowledge from last week, where we learnt how to read dot notation on the treble clef. Transferring those skills onto our recorder playing. This week we were reading music that used the first three notes on the recorder  G, A and B – (Do, Re and Mi)

In year 5 we began our composition project based on ‘Farmer Duck’ by Martin Waddell – preparing to write a chordal accompaniment to the story, based on the mood of the duck through the story. Today we created a tonality, feel & tempo, and emotion story map to work out the structure of the piece.