P1/2 Music Terms 1-3 2022-23

I have had great fun with P1/2 in music.  They are a lively bunch who love singing, playing instruments and listening to music.

We were treated to a visit by professional musician, Seth Travins in Term 1 who is learning to be a music teacher and wanted to see what the classes at Dunrossness got up to.  He performed one of his own songs to us and taught us ‘Chikadee’.

A large part of music lessons for the younger children are the Kodaly singing games and rhymes which introduce pupils to basic music literacy and understanding music in a fun way.  Singing is a very important aspect of music education, especially in the formative years and one of the highlights of the year was the class performance of ‘The Snowflake Song’ at the Christmas Concert.  The pupils also learnt to play a melody on the glockenspiels to accompany this which they really enjoyed.

In term 2 the pupils had fun composing for the ‘Hairy Scary Castle’.  They had to invent sounds using their voices, body percussion and instruments to accompany the spooky story which we then recorded.

There has been lots of super musical ‘show and tells’ from some of the brave children and the other pupils in the class are always so attentive when listening to these and come up with some very interesting questions and feedback about the performances.

The kitchen roll tube rhythm playalongs are always a hit as are the boomwhackers and the pupils have come up with some weird and wonderful ways of playing them!

Thank you for your enthusiasm and good work in music lessons P1/2 and I look forward to term 4.

P2/3/4 Music Terms 1-3 2022-23

One of the highlights of P234 music lessons this year has been having some of the P6/7 pupils in to assist.  These pupils have been so patient with the younger pupils who in turn have been very appreciative of their efforts.  They taught the class songs and rhymes, helped them to learn to play music on various instruments and demonstrated how to play their own instruments.

A large part of music lessons for the younger children are the Kodaly singing games and rhymes which introduce pupils to basic music literacy and understanding music in a fun way.  Singing is a very important aspect of music education, especially in the formative years and one of the highlights of the year was the class performance of two versions of ‘Away in a Manger’ (Shetland dialect and signing) which they worked so hard to perfect.  Special thanks to Mrs Moar and Mrs Graydon for helping us with this and to the P7 pupils who accompanied the pupils on the guitars.

The pupils also had some fun in term 2 with ‘Hairy Scary Castle’.  This was a composing activity where the pupils had to invent sounds using body percussion and instruments to accompany the spooky story and there has been more super musical ‘show and tells’ from some of the brave children.  The other pupils in the class are always so attentive when listening to these and come up with some very interesting questions and feedback about the performances.

Whatever we have been doing in classes one of the main objectives has been for the pupils to have fun and enjoy music and I think we have all managed to do that!

I have had a super year so far teaching P456. Throughout the session they have been exemplary at following our school rules in music (Ready, Respect and Safe) and because of this they have been an absolute pleasure to teach.

In Term 1 they delighted me with their huge variety of compositions for body percussion or instruments using a set structure. Pupils wrote their pieces out and recorded them and then had them evaluated by the class using 2 stars and a wish. In the final few lessons pupils played some Kodaly Singing Games and Rhymes and tried their hand at chair drumming – not as easy as it sounds!

Term 2 started with some fun activities to link in with Halloween and Bonfire Night. We played lots of Halloween music games and listened to ‘Fireworks’ by Igor Stravinsky. As I knew the class were such good singers I challenged them to try a very tricky song for the Christmas Concert and I’m sure everyone will agree that their performance of ‘Super Santa’ was outstanding. We couldn’t have done this without the assistance of Mrs Henderson and Mrs Smith.

Term 3 began by listening and appraising different versions of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ (from Jimi Hendrix to Dougie Maclean!). Pupils were encouraged to listen carefully and comment on musical features and also give their personal opinions on whether they liked each version or not and why. We also learnt a little about the history of the piece and the lyricist, Robert Burns. They then went on to learn about the pentatonic scale (using tuned percussion instruments) and worked in Co-operative Learning groups to compose their own pieces of music using this scale.

More recently they have been working on the Up Helly Aa songs for SMUHA and the pupils learnt to play some of the chords for ‘Jeemie the Jarl’ on ukulele.
In the last couple of weeks they evaluated each other’s other’s compositions and I am planning to do some Samba activities with them to end the term.

Apologies for not posting this sooner.  I hope you enjoy reading about what these talented pupils have been doing in music so far this session and seeing some of the photos.  I have certainly enjoyed working with them.  We have lots of videos too which you can hopefully hear at a future Open Night.

P6/7

In Term 1 we started with some rhythm revision using various body percussion activities as a class.  Pupils then went into pairs/small groups to compose their own pieces for body percussion and/or instruments using some of these rhythms in an ABA structure.  Pupils wrote their pieces out and recorded them. The recordings were then played to the class who evaluated them in groups.  The pupils were very focussed throughout this task and showed some excellent examples of team work.  Sometimes the weather was even good enough to work outside!  In the final few lessons pupils played some Kodaly Singing Games and Rhymes and tried their hand at chair drumming – not as easy as it sounds!

Term 2 started with some fun activities to link in with Halloween and Bonfire Night.  We played lots of Halloween music games and listened to ‘Fireworks’ by Igor Stravinsky with pupils answering questions about the music on individual worksheets.  Some very thoughtful answers were given.  We also had fun trying the ‘Remember Remember the 5^th of November’ rhyme as a round in several groups.  Pupils came up with lots of ideas for a possible Christmas song for the school concert with ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ finally being chosen.  Pupils then worked really hard in small groups and individually to produce a quality class performance at the concert.  Some pupils chose to develop their singing whilst others opted to play an instrument.

Term 3 began by listening and appraising different versions of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ (from Jimi Hendrix to Dougie Maclean!).  Pupils were encouraged to listen carefully and comment on musical features and also give their personal opinions on whether they liked each version or not and why.  We also learnt a little about the history of the piece and the lyricist, Robert Burns.

They then went on to learn about the pentatonic scale (using tuned percussion instruments) and worked in Co-operative Learning groups to compose their own pieces of music using this scale.

We played some musical games (eg Sevens, rhythm playalongs etc) and more recently have been working on the Up Helly Aa songs for SMUHA.  Pupils learnt to play the chords for ‘Jeemie the Jarl’ on ukulele, piano or guitar.  In the last couple of weeks they will be listening to each other’s compositions and evaluating them.

Several P6/7 pupils have volunteered to help out with the P2/3/4 music lessons this session and both the P6/7 pupils and those in P2/3/4 have benefited greatly from this.  It has also been a great help to Mrs Inkster.  Thank you all!

All the classes have been working really hard to learn the song that Andrea Henderson wrote especially for ‘Jeemie the Jarl’ way back in 2000.  We have really enjoyed learning it.  Some of the P6/7 pupils also performed the song on instruments.  Thank you all for working so hard to learn it for SMUHA 2023!

Primary 1/2

Primary 2/3/4

Primary 4/5/6

Primary 6/7