Monthly Archives: February 2014

Issue 124: Welcome to The Jungle

Posted on February 25, 2014 by

Hello again, and here we go, ready for the second half of term. I’m immensely cheered by the sight of all the daffodils and other spring flowers appearing in the hedges as I whizz around the countryside from school to … Continue reading →

Posted in The Jungle | Leave a comment

Issue 124: Focus and listening game – pass the tambourine

Posted on February 25, 2014 by

Have the children sit in a circle, and select some suitable instrument from the class percussion trolley. A tambourine is a good one to start with – if you want to make the game more of a challenge, choose some … Continue reading →

Posted in Class Teaching, Percussion | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Issue 124: Topic; Spies and Secrets

Posted on February 25, 2014 by

This class topic has been a gift for me. Now the entire year 3 keyboard class is able to read and play from notation with almost zero input from me! How? We had been playing simple music for a term, building up from … Continue reading →

Posted in Class Teaching, Keyboards, Theory | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Issue 124: First Steps in piano (or keyboard)

Posted on February 25, 2014 by

I’ve been trying out different ways of introducing notation to young keyboard/piano students. This worked surprisingly well in the year 3 Wider Opportunities Keyboard class I started teaching back in September: I taught “D” as the first note, and each key … Continue reading →

Posted in Keyboards, The organised teacher, Theory | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Issue 123: Welcome to the Jungle

Posted on February 16, 2014 by

A timely issue this week – thoughts about lesson observations and also the Kalele song. Have a great half term.

Posted in The Jungle | Leave a comment

Issue 123: Lesson Observations

Posted on February 16, 2014 by

I had a lesson “Observed” last Monday. Apart from a minor technology fail, all went roughly as planned.It happened to be with one of my most well-behaved classes, and I have emerged encouraged and with a couple of useful pointers … Continue reading →

Posted in Class Teaching, The organised teacher | Tagged | Leave a comment

Issue 123: A Recent Wider Opportunities Samba Lesson

Posted on February 16, 2014 by

A 40-minute year 4 samba lesson, lesson 5 of a series of 10 at this school. I was being observed, so as well as teaching what I planned to teach, I also wanted to make sure that plenty of boxes were ticked! This … Continue reading →

Posted in Class Teaching, Lessons that have happened, Samba | Tagged | Leave a comment

Issue 123: Kalele

Posted on February 16, 2014 by

I first came across this call-and-response song when I was doing the Trinity College/Open University course for Wider Opportunities and Primary Music “Practioners” (how I HATE that word!). The course was a mixture of on-line units and taught sessions, and this … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment