This afternoon we celebrated finishing our Music topic this half term by recording our final performance of the song we have been learning. It is called ‘I wanna play in a band’. We think we make a very good band!

Today in Music we started to learn a new song called I Wanna Play in a Band. We started the lesson listening to Queen’s We Will Rock You. We could barely keep still! We were clapping and moving and some of us were even singing. This is rock music which is the same style as the one we are learning.

We learnt to sin the song, played our imaginary instruments and even started to improvise by making up our own verses. We had excellent ideas! We are going to learnt to play the glockenspiel parts and then will add a video so keep checking the blog.

In Music this week we continued to work on our song Ho Ho Ho! We now know all the words for the singing part and are beginning to get better at the rap. This week we added glockenspiels to the musical interlude section of the song. Considering it was our first lesson with the glockenspiels we were very good!

We have also been continuing to work on our concentration skills as this is our focused behaviour for learning this half term. Over the last few weeks we have worked on our concentration by playing memory games. This week we started with practising some tongue twisters. It was very tricky! We really had to concentrate on saying the correct words. Then we played Jenga in groups. We really had to concentrate on what we were doing to make sure the tower didn’t fall. We think we are getting better at concentrating and are putting it into practise in our lessons.

In our Music lesson today we learnt more about beat and rhythm and particularly focused on short and long sounds. We practised copying rhythms made from short and long sounds then invented some symbols for writing our rhythms down. We then created our own sequence of long and short sounds and recorded them. We worked in pairs to practise guessing games and playing each other’s sequences.

Today we enjoyed our first real Music lesson. We started by listening and evaluating a piece of music called March past of the kitchen utensils. We had excellent ideas about what the music might be about and were able to name some of the instruments which were playing.

Miss Williams then taught us boom-chicka-boom as a warm up chant and we loved it! Next we explored the difference between beat and rhythm. We then practised two songs that we learnt last week; A plate of potatoes and How many people here for dinner? Both of these songs helped us to practise beat and rhythm.

Finally we listened to a song called Grandpa’s strolling down the avenue. It was an interesting song because the first verse was very slow, then the next verse and little faster and the last verse very fast. First we practised clapping along to the beat and then we moved around the classroom to the beat. We were very good at it and are looking forward to next week’s lesson.

In Music today we listened to different types of music and shared our opinions of them. We expressed our opinions through drawing or writing. It was very interesting to listen to different types of music. We listened to ragtime music ‘The Entertainer’, classical music ‘Hungarian Dance’ by Brahms, Musical music ‘When I Grow Up’ and reggae music ‘Three Little Birds’. At the end we had to decide which was our favourite and why.

This was the results of our vote:
The Entertainer – 3
Hungarian Dance – 1
When I grow up – 5
Three Little Birds – 15

This is what we thought:

Today we continued to learn how to play the glockenspiel. We are practising reading music, playing the notes and singing the song! It is hard work but every week we are getting better with the extra practise.

In our Music lessons this half term we are learning about rhythm and pulse. We are continuing to enjoy learning new songs but are particularly excited to be learning how to play a glockenspiel. So far we have learnt how to hold the beater, where the notes are and how they are organised according to pitch. We have been learning a song that we half rap/chant and half sing. We are using this song to practise playing the note of E on our glockenspiel. Last week we found it easy to play on the beat when counting but very difficult to play when the song was playing. This week we practised more and have really improved. We hope you enjoy watching our performance.

Hey You Group 1

Hey You Group 2

Today the sweet sound of Music could be heard from Toucans classroom! We enjoyed our second Music lesson of the year today. We were learning about the pulse and following instructions for how and when to sing and playing instruments.

First we warmed up our voices with Boom-Chicka-Boom… we loved it! We then practised singing a song called ‘Music is in me’. We had to split into two groups and follow the instruction on when to sing. It was tricky at first but the more we practised, the better we got. We then practised playing the pulse on our instruments. We played a game with Miss Williams as a warm up and then started to play to the pulse of a new song we are learning called ‘Uncle Tom’.

We hope you enjoy the video of us singing our song and please do check back next week to see us playing our instruments also.

We had a great time in Music today! We continued practising making our own pieces of music. This week we chose just one conductor to take charge and the rest of us followed their instructions.

We practised and then at the end of the lesson we watched row 1 and row 3. This is what we were impressed with:

Well done everyone – great ideas!

Today in Music we became conductors! We have been learning about how they control an orchestra to make a piece of music. We started our lesson by being Miss Williams’ orchestra. Together we designed some symbols:

• Start
• Stop
• Play louder
• Play quieter
• Play faster
• Play slower

We practised using them to play a rainstorm with our instruments.

Then we split into groups. We designed and made our own symbols for the conductor to use. We used them to make our own rainstorms by following instructions. It was great fun! We have learnt a lot about how changing the speed and volume can change a piece of music.

Toucans finished their final day of the half term by making some joyful sounds. We have been learning all about beat and rhythm and today we used the instruments to practise playing different rhythms. First Miss Williams did some with us as a class and then we worked with a partner to try and make our own up. This was a bit harder but we enjoyed trying!

We have also been learning about long and short sounds. Today we played a game in pairs. One of us played a sequence of sounds and the other had to guess which one they were playing. I’m sure you can see from the photos we thought our Music lesson was great fun!

Today in Music we continued to learn about the beat. We then started to learn how to follow instructions to sing and play instruments at the same time. Miss Williams showed us a sign for ‘pick up your instrument’, ‘play’, ‘stop’ and ‘put down your instrument’. We then practised singing our song Uncle Tom and playing the beat on our instruments when Miss Williams told us to. We did an excellent job! We are getting much better at following instructions and are enjoying our Music lessons.

Today in Music we learnt about how to use instruments in a song. We learnt the song London’s Burning and we practised in with the beat on our instruments. We then learnt to sing it in two groups. This is called a round. We think we did OK but we hope to get even better next week.

We continued to learn about beat and rhythm this week in Music. Have a look at our video to see exactly what these words mean.

We then worked in small groups to give and follow instructions to compose our own piece of music. We worked as a group to think of a rhythm and then one of us became the composer. The composer had to give instructions to the rest of the group about when they should start and stop playing. Each group worked really well together and the music they made was excellent.