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 on singing songs with actions and a Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11) lesson investigating musical emojis!
Key Stage 1
Learning Objective: to practise and perform action songs.
Length: ½ hour.
1. Watch and join in with Mr Tumble singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.”
2. Now, let’s listen to this together!
3. Try some of your own patterns!
Use the words: “Touch the ground, sit up, stand up and jump.”
Try using 4 different actions in any combination. If the children find it difficult to sing the correct notes, they can just say the words and perform the actions.
4. Now let’s move on and listen to this!
Listen to the clip as many times as needed, so that the child is secure with the song.
The words are: “Touch the ground, sit up, turn around. Touch the ground, sit up, turn around. Stand up, stand up, jump, jump, jump! Touch the ground, sit up, turn around.”
5. We have one final song! Listen to the following clip.
Try the song with some of the actions missing. Ask your child to miss out the words when they sing but still perform the action.
6. After this, children can experiment!
They can make sounds for the missing movements as suggested (a pencil against a glass for “sit up,” clapping for “touch the ground,” and shaking a bottle with rice in for “jump”). They can add their own sounds to some of the movements that haven’t been missed out, such as “stand up” and “turn around.” They could just continue to sing the song, missing out more and more actions each time. They may want to teach the song to a family member.
Key Stage 2
Learning Objective: to investigate mood in music.
Length: ½ hour.
For this lesson, you will need to know that dynamics means how loud or quiet a piece of music is, and tempo means how fast or slow it is. If you know about tonality (major and minor) in music, this will help too. Lessons 2-6 help with some of this if you haven’t done them already!
1. Let’s start off by listening to these two pieces of music! As you listen, jot down how the music makes you feel.
• Consider the tempo (speed) of the music and the tonality (is it major/minor?)
• Think about the dynamics and whether the notes are smooth or spiky (called articulation).
• Given all the above factors, what mood does the music evoke in you?
You can listen to each one in full if you like, or stop at the suggested times.
Trumpet Concerto by Joseph Haydn, up until 1:05
“Erbarme Dich, Mein Gott” by J.S. Bach up until 1:20
2. Music is amazing at making us feel a certain way. Let’s play Musical Emoji Bingo! 😊
• Make a grid with 4 squares in. Now draw four of the following emojis in each square:
Scary
Silly
Angry
Romantic
Happy
Sad
Here’s one we drew earlier as an example!
• Now listen to the first 30 seconds or so of the following music. If you hear a piece that represents one of your emjois, you can cross it off! It’ll be more fun if your grown up plays too and you can see which of you crosses all your emojis off first!
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
3. You can now go through your answers together here!
By Rebecca White for Rhinegold Education.