Crew Marsh – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

Continuing our work on ‘Nautilus’, we started by making large and small shapes with our bodies. This was a good activity to get us thinking about how music can make different shapes using different beats and length durations. We repeated this activity only this time we had to make a big shape, and become a small shape over 8 counts. We worked hard to make sure that we were all taking our time so that we all became smaller shapes at the same time. We then repeated this again, only this time we started as smaller shapes and we had to grow to become bigger shapes, again over 8 counts.

We then moved on to explore sounds as images and how the shapes used within the animated music video match closely with the sounds used within the piece of music. We noticed that the shapes at the beginning of the video looked like jaws opening and closing and they moved in time with the music.

We then looked at examples of music graphic scores and talked about how images and marks on a page might tell a story of how the music changes or how a piece of music is played and performed. We listened to ‘Nautilus’ again and created our own music graphic scores to match the sounds we could hear and the shapes we thought the music was making.

Crew Marsh – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

We began our next unit of music ‘Nautilus’ by learning all about the composer Anna Meredith. She composed the piece of music ‘Nautilus’ and her music covers lots of different styles. We listened to the music with our eyes closed whilst thinking of the following questions:

Whilst continuing to listen to the music, we explored feeling the beat using our bodies to move in time with the music. We listened carefully for any changes in the music and considered how we would use our bodies to show that change. We worked as a crew to follow a listening map that matched the music as it changed throughout.

Crew MW – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

To continue with our unit on ‘Down there under the sea’, we recapped our physical warm up from the previous lesson. We then reminded ourselves of the lyrics to our song and used picture prompts to help us think about the content of each verse.

We then listened to the sounds of the sea being made using percussion instruments and thought about how we could use the instruments in our classroom to create similar sounds.

We represented seagulls, crabs and waves using different percussion instruments and performed as a class to create a seaside soundscape.

We finished the lesson by looking at the notes C-D-E on the glockenspiel. We worked hard to keep in time with our partner to play each note.

Crew MW – Music

21st May 2024Sarah Mcglone

We began work on our new unit of work called ‘Down there under the sea’ by first of all warming our bodies up, thinking about making big movements with our arms and legs to represent different activities you would do at the beach – swimming, surfing, making sandcastles, and jumping over waves.

We discussed lots of different sounds that you might hear at the beach, and thought about how we could represent or make similar noises using our voices. We talked about the noise of the waves, seagulls, a rain storm out at sea, as well as a foghorn blaring to help keep ships safe! We worked together as a crew to create short soundscapes for each of the sounds.

We then listened to and responded to a piece of music that represented being underwater. It was accompanied by a video that showed lots of different sea creatures and how they moved in the water. We responded by moving our bodies to the music in different ways and at different speeds.

We finished the lesson by listening to and beginning to learn our new song ‘Down there under the sea’. We listened carefully to the words and started to try singing along at the same time as the song, thinking about how we moved our voice up and down to sing different notes.

Applying editing and redrafting

21st May 2024Ruth Shields

After having some time to edit and redraft other people’s work, it was time to apply these skills to our own work. We were given time to start working through our plot point so we could uplevel it. This is a skill we’ve been working hard on this year and still find it a little tricky especially as we feel we did a good job the first time round. However, we know there is always room for improvement.

Is it fair or unfair?

21st May 2024Ruth Shields

As we came towards the end of our history case study last week, we consolidated out learning on the process taken to make chocolate. Then we had an opportunity to look at the working conditions before fair trade and after fair trade. We then worked together to sort a range of statements into fair and unfair. We were surprised to see there were a lot more unfair than fair. Finally, we conducted a conscious alley, where we were asked to debate a side of the argument. We really enjoyed this activity.

Editing and Redrafting

21st May 2024Ruth Shields

Last week, we spent some time revisiting editing and redrafting out writing. We were shown examples of work from books and then we worked together to edit for things like punctuation and sense. Once we were happy we had completed the editing, we worked together to redraft which could have considered of added a fronted adverbial, conjunction or adding further description.