By Mrs R Clarke

Year 1 and 2 children were entertained by our Year 4 Music classes, with super presentations of some very 'noisy stories'!

In the Spring Term, Year 4 children have been learning about the different Musical 'Elephants' (Elements!). They have learnt how to describe the dynamics, tempo, pitch, duration, structure, timbre and texture of a piece of music. The children have learnt about 'Programme Music' - Music which represents something or paints a picture in the mind of the listener.

They have listened to 'The Carnival of the Animals', Fleetwood Mac's 'Albatross' and George Gershwin's 'American in Paris' (to name a few!), as these show how the musical elements can change to create a specific mood or image. The children then took this one step further and composed their own soundtracks to story books. 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt', 'Rosie's Walk', 'Goodnight Owl', 'Peace at Last' and 'The Stormy Night', are super examples of stories which prompt lots of sound effects, to bring them to life.

After lots of practice, Y4 performed their books to Stewart House. We talked about how to entertain a group of children - how to speak clearly and slowly, use facial expressions and how to encourage the children to join in as well. The children used accurate percussion instruments to illustrate animal noises, weather sounds and some unfortunate accidents for poor Mr Fox!

I am very proud of the Y4 children for working so hard, and thank the Stewart House children for being such a welcoming and captive audience.