when i added this item to the list my intention was to teach a primary school class something many may not of done before and get them excited about a topic i'm excited about, naturally for me this would be music so when i got the
opportunity to create a music workshop at college it just seemed like an opportunity to take advantage of, had just knocked the door.
we were given the task of creating a music workshop of some description for the community, we could present it how we liked and it could be for any target audience so long as we met the course requirements. after a few weeks of planning we decided the primary school near me was our best option (for legal reasons and child protection i cannot release the name of the school or add pictures and video's)
we started with a warm up game the kids were just incredibly excited ~it was just nuts! and a Chinese whispers style rhythm race - this is where you start with a rhythm and you tap it onto the back of the person stood in front they then tap onto the person stood in front's back so on and so forth until it reaches the front, the person at the front then claps it out, if it's right that line sits down and wins if not it goes back to the back and starts again.The kids were just extremely competitive and excitable they loved it so if you ever find yourself having to teach a bunch of 7-8 year old's play this, it get them team building, excitable and into rhythm.
we them split them into groups one group used flash cards with note groupings written on them phonetically so they could pick cards and read and play basic music notation that
they picked and made themselves. they were very pleased with themselves when we told them they had just unwittingly read music. another group taught some composition using pictures they got the kids to think about the picture's and how they could relate the instrument sounds to the picture. then create some noise's to capture the picture. O.K so they weren't mini Mozart's but they had fun and made some 'music' for themselves. the third and final group used colourful xylophones with corresponding notation that we had prepared so they were playing a piece of arranged music from sheet music not a bad hour considering many had never done music before let alone read, played arranged music (even if it was nursery rhymes) and composed.great fun would love to do that again, hey if you would like to book me just drop me an emial and i will get back to you with prices etc.
