We began our new unit of music ‘Cat and mouse’ by warming up using a song called ‘Three little mice’. We used our bodies to create actions, as well as our voices to capture the characteristics of cats and mice.

To practise our listening and appraising skills, we watched a recording of ‘Duetto buffo di due gatti (cat duet)’ and shared our thoughts on what we liked or disliked about the performance, whether the singers used words, and how they communicated a message. We talked about how the characters told a story through the sound of a cat and used their bodies and voices to tell the story.

We then played a game called ‘The old grey cat’ to get us thinking about how cats and mice move. We listened to the audio and tried to make movements in time with the music before joining in with the singing.

We finished by listening to our song ‘What do you want to eat little mouse’. Once we had listened, we tried to clap the words whilst thinking about the lyrics carefully. We thought of some alternative lyrics for the song and had a go at using these lyrics to see what they sounded like alongside our clapping.

In our final lesson of our unit ‘Nautilus’, we began by following a listening map to warm our bodies up whilst thinking about how music can make shapes.

We then discussed opinions and how it was important to have your own opinion on something. We talked about how your opinions can be different to those of other people but both were valid. Not everyone will have the same opinion about a piece of music and that is okay.

The piece of music ‘Nautilus’ has been used to create different types of art, an animation, a ballet and an advertisement. We watched videos of each of these art forms and formed our own opinions on whether we liked the story that was being told. We discussed how even though the same piece of music was used in each, the videos and visuals helped to create a different story each time.

To finish, we had a vote on which one was our favourite. The winner was the ballet!