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 5th 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!
