Tag Archives: keystage2

Issue 7: Reading and Composing Music – Rhythm

The easiest way of finding out if the children can read music is to get them to write it.  It doesn’t take long to teach children to understand the basics of rhythm notation; a handful of flash cards and you … Continue reading

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Issue 5: Hi Low Chickalow

This is a little playground clapping game which I learned from my daughter when she was a junior school.  Some children know it as part of a longer clapping rhyme. Arrange the children in pairs, and get them to shake … Continue reading

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Issue 4: Action Song; Tony Chestnut Knows I Love You

This is a version of “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes” with the same amount of manic bending and stretching. The children will enjoy the puns in the song once they know the actions; simply point to each part of the body as … Continue reading

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Issue 3: First Lesson of Term; Wider Opportunities; Lyons C Clarinets

We’ve done the warm up, the song, and the game, and it’s the moment the children have been waiting for. Everyone is persuaded to sit down; the clarinets are handed out with instructions NOT TO OPEN THEM YET.  The inventory numbers on … Continue reading

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Issue 3: Zum Galli Galli – singing game

This is an excellent song for passing something around the circle in time to the pulse.  I have used bean bags, but, if they are kept in the P E shed in the playground, and are all damp and smelly … Continue reading

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Issue 2: Songs for the New School Year – Keystage 2

Finding a really catchy song that all the children will enjoy can be a bit of a challenge – especially when you are walking into a new school for the first lesson. These are some of my favourites for starting the … Continue reading

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Issue 1: First keyboard lesson of the year with a Wider Opportunities class

Oh joy! This is one of my favourite lessons of term! This is the day that the children are introduced to their keyboards; let’s not kid ourselves that any formal music teaching is going to take place but it is … Continue reading

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Issue 1: My Hat, It Has Three Corners / Venetian Carnival

The Hat in the song is a three-cornered hat, like the one Captain Jack Sparrow wears in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films. When you teach the song it’s worth making sure that “soh-doh” interval in line three, “And had”, … Continue reading

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