Reception / Primary 1 Programme: Detailed Description
Children enjoy starting with fun movement, listening and imagination activities, with the Boing Song and Monster Steps and Butterfly Dance quickly becoming firm favourites they will ask for over and over- and singing simple songs with actions. From the start children begin to choose and make decisions- eg ‘What movement will we do with the Boing today?’.
The drama of “Who is going to choose next?”, and “What are they going to choose?” makes sessions enjoyable and interesting, as you and the children learn more about each other.
Children learn left from right with a favourite funky song- initially using coloured stickers on their hands- red for right and blue for left.
They learn a song about counting to four, and soon are clapping or stomping with the one, two, three or four- practical learning about beats and bars. Quickly they are choosing which action to do, on which beat.
Children explore sound and silence with voice, body and percussion instruments- with children learning a simple conducting technique to lead the class, fantastic for boys with attention problems- “I want you to pay attention to me!” Developing a genuine culture of silence in a classroom has benefits across the curriculum.
Children explore numbers of sounds- one two three or four- learning to recognise what numerals look like, what different numbers of sounds ‘sound like’, and practice copying different numbers of sounds on voice and percussion. They then start to choose and perform different numbers of sounds with voice, body and percussion instruments, and control the movement of others by playing different numbers of sounds, through a variety of activities and songs.
Children explore sound and symbols- learning to make a single animal noise with a point at an animal symbol- and then start to build phrases with animal noises- making their own animal noise compositions with icons and the AB grid teaching aid. They explore the use of repetition of short sequences to build phrases, the most fundamental process in creating meaning in music- in the easy-to-use but powerful format of the AB Grid.
Children learn about different percussion instruments- drums, shakers, bells and tambourines: What the instruments are called and how to play them. They learn to recognise the sound of each type of instrument, and learn to control and conduct performance using symbols.
They then compose with percussion sounds on the AB Grid using icons- performing to a point conducted by the teacher, or sometimes one of the children.
Children explore the material paper- which can link to science and environmental studies. They learn how to make different sounds with paper, naming the sounds (wave, snap, rub, scrunch…), and learn to perform a beautiful song, with improvisations using paper.
The P1/reception program progresses in gentle steps, but maintains throughout a focus on individual children making decisions, and other children listening to, understanding and acting on those decisions- whether using visual cues and symbols, or spoken or musical language.
This social process underpins the creative classroom, and is used to explore the creative use of simple musical fundamentals. Children become familiar building simple but meaningful musical structures at a level right for them- using notation and sounds that are comfortable for them.
