Irresistible Ideas for play based learning » Music & Drama

everyone’s cuckoo!

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:01:25 +0000

We play lots of classical and other instrumental music in our kindergarten for our music and movement and also when the children are packing their bags to go home.

We play a different track each week and the children try to be packed and down on the mat ready to go before it finishes.

One piece that we play during our music sessions is “The cuckoo in the depths of the woods” from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens. It is fabulous for the children’s listening and reflex skills.

While the music plays the children do this activity in pairs.

We have one child standing in front being a tree. The one behind is the cuckoo.

When a cuckoo call sounds in the music the cuckoo ducks out from behind the tree calling out “cuckoo!” The sound doesn’t come regularly so the children have to be really on the ball so that when they hear it they are ready to pop out.

It always causes lots of laughter and plenty of joy!

Virginia from Mini Maestros has taught the children another cuckoo song where the cuckoo sound is echoed.

These are the words:

Little cuckoo in the tree, in the tree, in the tree.

Little cuckoo in the tree, sing a song for me!

Leader sings: Cuckoo and the followers echo: Cuckoo

Cuckoo …………. Cuckoo

Sing a song for me!

Now we have combined both these activities.

The children made pairs with the tree in front and the cuckoo behind as in ”The cuckoo in the depths of the woods”, but sang Virginia’s song, “Little cuckoo in the tree” with the child behind being the lead cuckoo ducking out from behind the tree once again to sing “cuckoo” and the child in front singing the echo.

Both songs worked really well being acted out and were a heap of fun. It was delightful to see the children giggling their way through the actions while trying really hard to keep up with the “cuckoo”!

still life – charcoal art

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:01:45 +0000

We have a little wooden model of a person that we call Punchinello.

The children are able to move its body around to make different shapes.

A fun and challenging big group activity is singing the old favourite, “Punchinello” whilst copying the body shape of our little friend who is in the middle of the circle.

While one child decides how Punchinello will look everyone claps their hands and sings this song …

“What shall you do Punchinello little fellow,

What shall you do Punchinello little dear?”

Once Punchinello is in his position we clap and sing …

“We’ll do it too Punchinello little fellow,

We’ll do it to Punchinello little dear!”

Then we copy the action.

We like to ask the child who positions Punchinello to decide how many seconds between one and ten we should hold the pose for … not always easy!

It’s lots of fun with many giggles as we all try to move our bodies …

into sometimes impossible positions!

Instead of letting Punchinello have a break, we kept him busy at the easel.

We like to discuss with the children the various forms of art and one which popped up was what a still life is. We also like to provide the children with a wide range of art media, so decided to combine Punchinello, the still life and charcoal with white paper.

The children once again put Punchinello into interesting positions, then drew what they saw …

with gorgeous results!

Of course children usually draw what they can’t see as well and who could resist slipping in a football for Punchinello to be kicking when the opportunity arose!

Some children LOVE to have their artwork framed and displayed for others to admire.

Here we’ve placed some on the bathroom window and drawn frames around them using liquid chalk pens. So easy yet a nice finishing touch!

Occasionally our friend Punchinello would go walk about from his still life modeling position…

and we would find him back down on the mat …

entertaining and challenging small groups of children … such fun!

little purple aliens – part #2

admin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:01:13 +0000

Our children’s interest in space continued into the new week where we discussed the different planets in our solar system. A wonderful new type of creative activity, one we had never tried before, but picked up from Maria at Eco-Cycle Junkie …

is called salad spinner art and we thought it would be an interesting way for the children to make some beautiful looking planets to adorn our room …

alongside our space rockets and meteorites!

The children placed paper plates into the salad spinner …

blobbed in spoonsful of coloured paint …

popped on the lid and spun like crazy.

Thanks to centrifugal force …

the resulting patterns were as unique as they were beautiful.

As well as planets …

we discussed what sort of equipment we would need in outer space – the suit, oxygen tanks, heavy boots etc, and of course …

the walkie-talkie.

We had some small blocks of foam that had one sticky side.

The children peeled of the protective paper and stuck on an aerial and a card with sample material on it, which one of our crafty mums had given us.

The material allowed for a secret place to add buttons to dial private numbers.

Simple and effective, the children continued to play with them the whole session.

The children loved the chance to play in alien slime …

make alien head gear …

and create alien masks.

All thought up by the children, they used bottle tops, small tubes and other bits and pieces, once again found at …

you guessed it … the invention table!

Food is another topic the children interestingly associated with space travel. We love cooking at kinder and what better to munch on than some ‘moon rocks‘? The children made them using one of their favourite recipes – chocolate balls.

They mixed up: a packet of plain bicuits which they crushed with vigour, a cup of coconut, a tin of condensed milk, a tablespoon of cocoa and a cup of sultanas.

They rolled the mixture into lumpy bumpy balls then popped them in the fridge for a while …

before our aliens ate them with relish!

After eating our space food we gathered around to sing our “Little Purple Alien” song again.

This time we provided the children with props …

A purple rubber glove and a styrofoam ball with a sticky dot on it and suddenly you have your very own little purple alien!

The children LOVED the addition of an alien to the song and showed some very interesting alien moves!

What a wonderful journey we’ve been on over the last couple of weeks!

After showing the children how to make their very own balloon rocket, combined with all this talk of rocket ships and space travel, the children’s interest towards other types of flying machines has really been fueled. You can probably guess where we’re heading to now!