Today we had a very special treat- Theo brought his mum, Hazel, and his little sister, Sally, to nursery.  Theo and his mum both brought interesting boxes with them.  We all sat in a circle and we all sang “Knock, knock, knock -What’s in the Box?”  Hazel was first to open her box – Sally was Hazel’s special helper and helped get 3 very interesting looking pieces of a musical instrument out and put them together.

Hazel told us the instrument was an oboe, and asked us how we thought she might play it.  We thought you would have to blow into it.  Hazel gave it a go, but it didn’t really make a sound.  Hazel then brought out a little box – again we sang, “What’s in the Box?”  Hazel took out something that she said was a reed.  She blew it and it made a funny noise, a bit like a chicken.  When she put the reed into the oboe, though, something magical happened.  She played the most beautiful music.  Hazel also played us the Sonya the Duck’s theme from Peter and the Wolf, which we had watched on Youtube last Friday.  It was wonderful – we pretended to paddle along like ducks in the water, and when the music changed we had to flap like Sonya when she was trying to get away from the Wolf.

T heo then opened his instrument case- he had a teeny, tiny, Theo-sized violin.  He played Frere Jaques beautifully, plucking the strings. He was amazing!! We all gave him a big round of applause!  After Theo’s solo, Hazel taught us a great action song about a penguin and then we all sang “Jingle Bells” with Hazel accompanying us on the oboe.

Thank you Hazel and Theo for a really lovely musical session and for coming back to share it again with our afternoon children, who loved it just as much as the morning group! It was a wonderful experience- Hazel has an amazing way of involving all the children with lots of participation and actions and we all learned lots while having great fun!!