Introduction
Overall, I am pleased with how the planning for our community music project has gone, I will use Gibb’s cycle to highlight this and to reflect on what we have done. We are working at Brudenell primary school working with a reception class which as students aged 4-5.
Research
We have researched throughout the planning stages of our project; we first researched the basic information needed to teach our age bracket. Once we had our meeting with our mentor we then moved on to more specific research. Firstly, we found that repetition is important, Montessori Academy (2017) states “repartition forms the basis for learning, skill development and accomplishment” giving reasoning such as “strengthening the brain’s neural processors.” Another key factor in teaching the age group that we are working with is simplicity. Giving the students something simple that is easy for them to join in with is key for us, giving the students an interactive session which is enjoyable and assessable. Our final thought in researching was that imagery would be important. Fun images are an effortless way to get the students engaged and excited about what they are learning. Myae Han (2014) states to “Use more than one way to explain the story such as illustration.” We did an excellent job in exploring and researching diverse ways to for our placement to be a success. Whilst we know that some of the planning we do with our research may change due to new information we might find out at our meeting with Julie Lock (Brudenell Primary School reception teacher) we have made a great start in understanding the fundamentals which will help with our planning.
Planning
Once we had finished with our research, we then moved onto the planning stage. Likewise, to the research, since we were yet to have our meeting with Julie at this stage it did give us difficulty in knowing exactly what we were planning. This is one thing I would really like to improve if we did the project again. Meeting our tutor earlier the process would make sure we know exactly what to prepare and plan for. However, even with this difficulty we were still able to start to plan activities that we knew would work due to our research. The first plan we made was hello and goodbye songs. These are songs we would sing at the start and end of every session. This is using our knowledge that repetition and simplicity are key. Giving the students a song that we start each session and song that we end each one gives our session a repetitive structure and gives them songs that even if they can’t join in on during the first week since we are repeating them by the end of the sessions they are songs that everyone can participate with. When writing the song, we used simple chord progression of major chords to give the song a happy and welcoming feel. These chords repeated a couple of times and then changed to a similar progression. We kept the melody the same throughout to make it easy for the students to pick up. Lyrically we kept it simple and repetitive likewise to make it simple for the students to pick it up. You can find the chords and lyrics of the song here Appendix 1. Welcome Song. We then moved onto the goodbye song. For this song we wanted the chords to resemble the end of the session, so we wanted it to have a sadder feel to it, so I used minor chords to give it that feel. Likewise, to the Hello song we used simple lyrics and melody to help the students learn it. You can find the chords and chords here Appendix 2 Goodbye Song. I was really pleased with how writing went. We created 2 songs that were easy to join in with and creating these helps structure our sessions giving the students something they can expect to repeat each session. We then planned some other songs that we could use. We learnt songs such as ‘If you’re happy” and you know it” Appendix 3, that would be simple repetitive songs that the students might already know. We did an excellent job creating a repertoire of original songs as well as prewritten songs that will engage the students as well as having simple and repetitive parts to make it accessible for everyone to join in.
Meetings
Next, we had our meeting with our mentor Julie who is the classes teacher. This meeting was immensely helpful as we learnt a lot about the students we are teaching from it. We learnt that several of our students are refugees and do not speak English as a first language. Some even with little to no English. This was quite a substantial change for us especially since this would make it harder to get the students joining in. Thankfully, we had already planned things such as the actions to the songs which students without English would be able to join in with. It also added to our idea that imagery would be helpful. Another bit of information we found out is that the classes theme for the year was animals. This was useful as it gave us something we could use as a topic for our sessions. This would also be helpful for getting the students new to English involved as our songs and games would be about the same things that they would be learning about. We then mentioned the ideas we had already, Julie agreed with us that simplistic and repetitive songs were the way to go. The final thing we spoke about and agreed with Julie was to have a performance for the parents at the end of our final session. This is a wonderful thing to do as it gives the students an opportunity to show off what they have learnt and enjoyed doing the past 6 weeks. I was really happy with the outcome of our meetings as we learnt a lot of useful information and finding out the classes theme gives us something to work for in terms of games and songs we can learn as well as something that we can use for our final performance.
More Planning
In the next round of planning we produced 2 important things. Once we had agreed that we would theme our sessions around the same theme that the kids had been doing we started to think of ways to include animals and nature in our sessions. The first activity we produced involved pictures of animals on lollipop sticks; we would then get the students to make noise on percussion instruments based on what the animal shown was. For example, if we got a picture of a mouse up, we would make quiet noises and if we got a bear up it would be loud booming noises. We evaluated this activity on our classmates, and we got positive feedback about the simplicity and engagement of the activity. The one bit of advice we did get was that we would need to be aware that the students might make the same amount of noise for each animal. The next idea we had was for the goal of our sessions would be to end up writing a song with the students. We decided that since it might be tricky to write a whole song, we would write a structure and get them to fill in the blanks. Our song was about what students would see whilst out on a walk to school. We want them to think of all the nature aspects and sounds they may hear. Here is our lyric sheet Appendix 4 Walk to School Song. I did think that the walk to school theme might not be very engaging and that we should try something more creative like walking through a jungle, however with the classes mixed upbringings we did not want to introduce something new with which they may struggle. To get the students to write the song we planned to use the school’s garden to send the students on a scavenger hunt with the tick sheet Appendix 5, this would give the students examples of what they can include when writing the song. It also is a great activity to engage them with the topic by giving them items to search for. The thing that was most valuable that we planned in this session was the actions to our songs, with English not being a large part of the classes first language it was really important to have something they could pick up from watching if they weren’t able to understand what was being said.
First Session Planning
For our first session, as for every session we are going to start with our welcome song and end with our goodbye song. After that we will need to get familiar with the students’ names, we have a name game that gets the students to follow a simple beat and say their name. This is an activity that we will repeat to get used to the students’ names and to also get them familiar with our names as well as basic rhythm. Next is a warm up came called rubber chicken to get there body’s moving. We then have an animal game where we are going to get the students walking round the room, then they will find some animals placed around the room, we will get them to walk round like those animals once they have found them. We produced this activity to go with the classes theme of animals, and we think it will be good as it is hopefully something they will have some familiarity with. The rest of the session we have some calmer listening and singing activities to help them wind down at the end.
Appendix 1 Welcome Song
Welcome song – A major
Chords: Amaj – | – – | Dmaj Emaj | Amaj – |
Hello
Hello
Hello to you today
Hello
Hello
Hello Its time to sing and play
Hello
Hello
Hello how are you today?
Hello
Hello
Hello lets clap and say hurray
Appendix 2 Goodbye Song
Cool down song – Emin
Chords: Emin | Dmaj | Cmaj | Gmaj
Goodbye, Goodbye
Nice to see you
Sing and play together
See you soon! X2
Appendix 3
If Your Happy
Get everyone to pick up a piece of percussion
Start guitar chords – establish a walking rhythm, tell group to join in when they can.
If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands….. x2
If you’re happy and you know it….Stomp your feet x2
If you’re happy and you know it…. Bang your drum x2
(Guitar chords continue)
Ask the room what we should do next
If you’re happy and you know it…. Suggestion
If you’re happy and you know it…. Suggestion
If you’re happy and you know it… Do all five!!!!
Appendix 4 Walk To School Song
Main song – Journey to School B Major
CHORUS
I’m walking
I’m waking
I’m walking
On my way to school
G C Am Em D
I’m looking
& Listening
& Feeling
On my way to school
Verse 1
C Bm
SEEING VERSES
What did you see?
What did it do?
What colour was it?
FEELING VERSES
How were you feeling this morning?
Was it hot or cold?
Excited or sad or tired?
LISTENING VERSES
What did you hear?
Was it loud or quiet?
Was it high or low?
CHORUS
I’m walking
I’m waking
I’m walking
On my way to school
G C Am Em D
I’m looking
& Listening
& Feeling
On my way to school
VERSE 1
First I saw a …. The big blue sky
Clouds are moving
Moving by
Then I saw…
VERSE 3
Then I heard a little bird …
OUTRO
Now we’re here
All together
With each other
Singing our songs/stories for you
Appendix 5
Plan
PLAN
What do we want to achieve
Have fun, final performance they can be proud of
Supported writing thing?
⁃ End goal: Performance,
⁃ Song/melody they have chosen/written with support from us
⁃ some simple instrumental sections where children showcase the rhythms/dynamics they have learnt
⁃ Supported by us
⁃ Throughout the sessions we need to introduce them slowly to the different elements that will build up the final performance
What to introduce them to
⁃ Songs/melody
⁃ Simple rhythms
⁃ Actions/dances
⁃ Instruments/how they sound
⁃ Listing/remebering (pictures)
Bibliography
Circle Time Success (2022) 6 Name Games for Circle Time Available Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh-r2hq2_Ew
Miss Nina – Music & Movement for Preschool (2021) Preschool Circle Time Song | Welcome Welcome Everyone | Toddler, Preschool, Kindergarten Song Available Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZpF7xRmEMI
Myae Han (2014) Strategies For Teaching English Language Available Online: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307920642_Strategies_for_teaching_English_Language_Learners_Storybook_time
N/A (2017) Importance Of Repetition In Early Childhood Available Online: https://montessoriacademy.com.au/repetition-child-development-montessori/
Teacher Related (2025) The Rubber Chicken Brain Break Game Available Online: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HYGFVAwrdTo
