Robins songs and resources

Autumn Term 2023

Here are some of the songs that the Robins group will be learning with Rachel this term. They are all songs that use just two pitches - soh and mi - which are the first two pitches that we work to develop. The next pitch that we will introduce is la.

With both Cordelia and Rachel, the Robins have been learning about pulse (beat) and rhythm. When you are singing with them at home, try to keep the beat by tapping your knees, as Rachel does in the video above. Then you can ask them to clap the rhythm (or the pattern) of the words. We have been doing a lot of this in lessons.

We have just started to work with the notation symbols for crotchet and quavers. See the pictures below.

We refer to crotchets as 'walk' or 'ta' at the moment. 

We refer to quavers as 'jog-ging' or 'te-te' at the moment.

If you would like a musical activity to do at home, you could make some rhythm cards with your child. Cut 8 squares out of a cardboard cereal box and ask them to draw a 'walk' or 'ta' on four of them and a 'jog-ging' or 'te-te' on the other four. Then, together, you can lay them down on the floor in any order the like - in a row of four (to represent a bar of 4 beats). Count 1,2,3,4 in a steady pulse and then clap and say the rhythm pattern together. Change one of the cards - how is it different etc.? A fun game is for them to lay out a pattern and you clap it but make a 'mistake' on purpose - can they spot it? 

Your cards might look like this, in which case you would clap and say:

1,2,3,4 ta ta te-te ta

OR

1,2,3,4 walk walk jog-ging walk

You can also use the rhythm cards to 'notate' the rhythm of the songs above e.g. 

Cobbler cobbler where's my shoe would be: te-te te-te te-te ta

If you have any questions, please ask!