Telling Stories through Music

Examples of our learning this term: How music can support visualizing the telling of a story, setting a scene or describing an emotion.

Reception Pupils celebrating the Chinese New Year: The Dragon Dance

In their build up to their Chinese New Year performance, Reception practised dance moves to different pieces of Chinese music with different tempi. They moved slowly then  quickly thinking about how it made them feel. They thought about how the music sounds like a dragon moving.

Year 2 Making the “Sounds of Fire”

As part of the ‘Fire of London’ project, Year 2 listened to the sound of real wooden objects burning then tried to make a sound effect as close to wood burning as they could.

They used a mixture of body percussion and sounds from objects in the classroom. They completed their performance by adding movement with red and orange scarves to look like flames.

Year 3 Exploring Sounds of the Rainforest

Year 3 have been learning about the Rainforest. They explored the natural sounds of the Rainforest and created their own sound effects using body percussion, varying the dynamics by following a conductor.

They explored instruments of the rainforest such as rain sticks and wind chimes and talked about how these copy natural sounds. They were set a challenge to make their own wind chime at home and share via Showbie.

Year 5 using Sound effect to accentuate interpretation of Shakespeare.

Year 5 took part in a Shakespeare production at Greenwich Theatre. They explored the use of sound effects and music to enhance their interpretation of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Examples include a wind chime used as a motif each time that magic happened and a steady pulse on djembe drums announced the arrival of the fairies.