Musicroom is dedicated to helping you provide your child with a rich and rounded education, even during school closures. Every week we’ll be providing free outstanding, fun and rewarding music lessons for Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 that can be taught at home. Simple to use and no musical expertise is required!
This week, from Rhinegold Education, a Key Stage 1 (ages 5-7) lesson about discovering long and short sounds and a Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11) lesson that gets you writing out rhythms!
Key Stage 1
Learning Objective: to identify long and short sounds (duration).
Length: ½ hour
1. Have a listen to this!
2. Now sing the song together!
Some sounds are short, some sounds are long. Which sound will you make after this song?
Take it in turns to make a sound at the end of the song. Be creative about how you make the sounds, using instruments, objects, your bodies and your voices.
3. Had fun singing?! Now listen to the next stage.
The third activity on the audio clip refers to dots and dashes, with dots representing short sounds and dashes representing long notes. The examples are below:
a) 
b)
c)
d)
e)
4. Now ‘play’ one of the patterns above.
You can use an instrument if you have one or sing the patterns. Try to avoid singing ‘short’ and ‘long’ this time, as it will be too easy to identify which pattern is sung. Sing to ‘la’ instead. You could use household objects to make the sounds but be careful because some objects will only make short sounds.
5. Extended learning!
If your child needs further challenge, ask him or her to create their own long and short pattern. Can they also use dots and dashes to write down patterns that you create?
Key Stage 2
Learning Objective: to understand and use crotchet and quaver rhythms.
Length: ½ hour
1. Listen to the track until you become familiar with the words and tune of this new song:
Chocolate is yummy
Creamy and sweet.
It’s such a shame my tummy can’t
Take any more to eat.
2. Now listen to this!
Use the table below to help you. As directed, stamp on every crotchet (indicated by a *) and clap on the quavers: (syllables that do not have a symbol above.)
3. Have a look at what a crotchet looks like written down:
4. Quavers are often shown together, like this:
Remember, 2 quavers make up one crotchet beat.
5. The song we’ve learned uses crotchet and quaver rhythms.
Each word with a * sign above it is a crotchet rhythm. Every word without a * sign above it is worth a single quaver.
6. See if you can write out the rhythm of the whole song, using the table to help you. Group your quavers into pairs, as shown above.
Here’s the first line for you:
7. Now make up your own crotchet and quaver patterns.
Try using body percussion, your voice or an instrument to play these. Be careful that you keep pairs of quavers even, so that each quaver is worth half a crochet beat.
By Rebecca White for Rhinegold Education.