Forest School Fun-Willow Class- 30.09.21
Fantastic Forest School!
Willow class have really enjoyed their time at forest school. The children have been exploring the environment and creating family trees. We also enjoyed using instruments to make our rocket launch into space.
Today as the hook to our new learning journey Palm Class were composers of their own sea shanties. They listened to really old fashioned, original sea shanties and then we thought of TV theme tunes that were based around sea shanties – we came up with Sponge Bob Square Pants. We then listened to the Sea Shanty that has made it into the charts recently and put clapping, drumming and bells to create different rhythms. As a final activity we played the remix version and we tried to clap along quickly which was difficult because it was so fast! Safe to say it was a loud but enjoyable afternoon.
Palm Class have been working hard this term learning all about different types of music from opera to body percussion. They have been thinking about different instruments and how alternative pieces types of music make them feel.
Today they finished journaling all their work and worked hard to create their own journey through their SOLE book to showcase their learning.
Palm Class took part in a ‘guess the sound quiz’ where they had to write down what they thought each sound they heard was.
They then had to decide whether the sounds were easy or hard to identify. It was a fun SOLE activity and got them to listen very carefully to the things around them.
We found the easiest sounds to identify were the dog barking and the bird tweeting. The hardest sound so to identify was toast popping out of the toaster.
Another great week in Foundation! We started a new topic, dangerous dinosaurs. The children have loved learning about prehistoric creatures and creating dinosaur movements to music outside. We have created our own dinosaurs and dinosaur names!
The children have been discussing empathy this week in wellbeing Wednesday. We have focused on self empathy. The children practised breathing exercises to feel calm and relaxed. They also celebrated all the ways they excel.
In maths this week, we have focused on ‘cheeky number 9’. We have loved learning about number 9 and looking at square numbers. The children enjoyed exploring the composition of 9 with numicon.
In literacy the children have shown incredible determination to make progress. We have been thinking about winter. We have thought about all the things we might smell,feel,touch and taste in winter. We made our own snowflakes and wrote some fantastic adjectives to describe them. 
Here comes the Year 2 and the marching band. Left, right, left, right. Step in time to the beat: 1, 2, 3, 4; let’s make sounds, high and low. That sound is loud. That one’s quiet. What can you hear? There are sounds all around. What’s making each one? These are all questions that Year 2 have been finding out this week as part of their beat, band, boogie learning journey.
Here are a collection of photos showing the kitchen bands they have created and different sounds they have been able to create whilst out and about!
As part of our ‘Beat Band Boogie’ topic, today we enjoyed making drums and listening to all the sounds we could make! We used yoghurt pots, balloons, masking tape and coloured pens. The balloons were challenging to put over the top of the yoghurt pots but we were very resilient and worked collaboratively to help each other succeed. After we made them, we carefully decorated them to make them our own. 
We were very lucky today to have a music lesson based on our topic. We first listened to Egyptian music and identified the different instruments we could here. Then we composed our own Egyptian piece of music in small groups. It was very loud but we had a lot of fun!
Monkey Puzzle were very lucky to have a music session with a specialist his afternoon composing their own Egyptian music pieces. They had to listen to pieces of music, try and identify what instruments they could hear and then re-create those pieces in groups. It was a very fun, but loud, afternoon.
Monkey Puzzle had great fun this afternoon becoming rap artists. They were creating raps and backing tracks on garage band making sure their lyrics would be good enough for the gate keeper to let them into Dragon Vine Towers on Alchemy Island. They tried really hard to create a variety of beats and the results were great!!!
The Foundation children were amazing today, playing their instruments and singing in front of Year 4. This performance was the culmination of our Friday music sessions with Kip Pratt and we were all very proud of the children and their wonderful music, performance skills and behaviour.
We had great fun dancing and playing musical instruments along with Kip this morning. Kip is a Primary Music Lecturer from Plymouth University who is very kindly dedicating the next few Friday mornings to visit us all in Foundation.
We have been learning about adjacent consonants in phonics. There is an ‘adjacent consonant’ in the word ‘band’. So, of course, we decided to start our own band!
We had great fun in Foundation this morning learning our pirate song, playing our instruments and learning our pirate dance too .
We have been musical storytellers! We listened to a story and chose instruments to represent different parts of the story.
We have also been learning a dance to do to a tune on the violin. Look at us go!
Can you remember the story and song?
Inspired by our Trash Bash topic, Holly class have written a song to help encourage people to look after our local environment.
Year 5 and 6 will be performing this during our celebration event on Tuesday 17th October.
Ebony Class have had an amazing day at TCS, taking part in the Spring Music Festival. They have learnt two new songs, learnt to play the ukulele and had great fun in their workshops led by year 13 students. All of this, before they came back and performed in the evening to a full audience!
The year thirteens really enjoyed working with them and stated “they are certainly a very talented group and we have loved working with them”. The head of music was blown away by their talent as well as, most importantly, by their manners throughout the whole day, even announcing this on stage!
Well done Ebony Class, a very proud teacher here!
Wow!!
This evening Ebony Class took part in the local community Spring Music Festival and blew everyone away! After a full day of workshops and rehearsals, the children returned to perform to friends and families from around the area. They sung their hearts out, performing 5 songs, two of which they only learnt today alongside playing the ukulele!
They were such a credit to the school, with the head of music announcing on stage how amazed she was by the children’s manners, the year thirteens being blown away by how quick they learnt new skills and Kip Pratt following our performance with just a “wow”.
Well done Ebony Class and a big thank you to all the parents for your continued support.
Today in Maple class, the children worked really hard to compose their own sounds using body percussion and their voices. This was to mimic a whale and a jellyfish moving through the water. They also created their own graphic scores on their whiteboards to record their sounds.
Today, we explored different instruments and practiced a variety of ways to play them.
We learned that ‘tempo’ means speed, and ‘dynamics’ means volume.
We’re working our way towards composing our own piece of film music for our topic ‘Under the Sea’.
Today in Maple Class we composed our own musical rhythms using clapping, stomping and gestures, with Miss Roach. We had lots of fun performing to each other.
Key Stage 2 spent the day down at St Michael’s Church today rehearsing for tomorrow’s carol concerts. Here’s a sneak peak at some of the delights which await the lucky audiences tomorrow!
Today the children of Fir class got to perform some songs to their family and friends. After 10 weeks of teaching, the children have shown great resilience and determination. The recital was fantastic and some of the children are now off to have further lessons.
This term, Fir class are getting the opportunity to learn brass with local teacher Mrs Price. They are able to have a go at playing the pocket trumpet, cornet and trumpet on a weekly basis. The children are progressing well and are able to play a couple of notes so far. Over the next 8 weeks, they will be developing their skills and learning some tunes to perform as a whole class!
A great afternoon was had in Monkey Puzzle today with the class making music and soundscapes of the sea using djembe drums and boomwhackers!
Today, we started rehearsing for our samba performance at the Princess Theatre!
Fir class spent the day at TCS’s music department with 5 other schools in the learning community to take part in a music festival. This then prepared them for the evening performance in front of 100s of parents.
Leading up up to the event, Fir class have been learning the violins and have also spent time learning the songs for the mass-choir performance.
The children performed fantastically and even sang their own song ‘Another Day’ which they wrote in the Autumn term.
We are ver proud of everyone involved. Thank you to the parents who were very supportive. Hope you all enjoyed it!
Last term, Year 3 and 4 wrote their own song about world peace. This was professionally recorded by Dez Minto of Broadwater studios. Over 20 musicians recorded the musical parts including drums, guitars and keyboards. All 123 children across the year group contributed to writing the lyrics as well as singing the vocals. BBC Radio Devon were so impressed they invited a small group of children to do a live radio interview in addition to playing the track on air to tens of thousands of people!