Lesson Activities...

Tweenies 'Copy Me Song'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/tweenies/songs/tweenies-copyme/

This link take you to a music video clip from Tweenies. This could be used with the children in the Early Years as a lesson starter. The children watch and then join in with this video and then take the idea outside to the musical trail where a similar 'copy me' activity could take place.

 

Match the beat

This activity can be led by the teacher or the children where the leader sets the beat or rhythm using any of the instruments on the music trail. The other children then copy this beat and see if they can keep the rhythm going. Extension of this task is to have more than 1 leader and different sets of followers to combine rhythms and compose a piece of music.

 

Traffic Lights

This is a variable activity which again, can be led by the teacher or a child, the leader holds up or call out red, amber or green and the musicians respond to this. 

Red = stop

Amber = play music with the slow tempo or play music at a quiet volume

Green = play music with a faster tempo or with a loud volume

 

Music for moods

Children play the musical instruments to express their mood or feelings or to demonstrate a set emotion. 

Similarly this activity could be done to represent the weather or seasons, this is a variety effective activity to be used with the outside music trail as the children can incorporate their immediate surroundings into the music. 

 

Sound effects for a story

- The Gruffalo

- We're going on a bear hunt

These are examples of well-known children's stories that we have used with children in schools within the music subject. The story is read to the children and the children make the sound effects or a backing track to suit the story mood or events. 

 

 

These are just some activity ideas that could be used with the outside music trail; they can all be adapted to suit a wide age range or developmental stages of children in primary schools. They also support the learning objectives and stages of the National Curriculum for music, both KS1 and KS2 and also the EYFS Creative Development framework.