We headed off down to the bayside suburbs again recently to visit Bonkers Beat Music Kinder and Childcare in Aspendale.

You will see the usual curriculum activities at Bonkers Beat, but in this post we want to highlight the emphasis they have on music and well being.

Galina, the owner of the centre and one in Brighton (which we will visit another time), has a strong music background (30 years’ experience) and has put together her own music curriculum that all groups throughout the centre follow.

It has three parts to it, each part being followed on a yearly rotation in their 2 year old, 3 year old and kindergarten rooms.

The beauty of each group following the same curriculum for the year, means that all the children and teachers are learning the same music, so both teachers and children can happily go into any room and join in at music time.

Another bonus of having a set curriculum like this is that the staff can be confident that over the year they have covered all elements of music such as rythm, beat, tempo, dynamics and so on.

As we all know, involvement in a music session also highlights other life skills such as waiting for your turn, sharing equipment, listening to others, having a go by yourself and congratulating others on a job well done.

We arrived in time to visit the two year old room. They very happily and excitedly joined in with Galina and their regular teachers singing, dancing and playing percussion instruments enthusiastically.

We really liked how they used Auslan gestures to go with the songs, a big plus for special needs children and children who either have no English yet (there is a large multicultural community here in Aspendale, families and staff) or whose talking is just starting. The centre sends the signing intructions home to the families so they can practise there.

We were  also able to enjoy the music session with the 3′s and 4′s combined and they had just as much fun as the littlies with Bonkers the Monkey leading the way!

The staff also use other puppets to help teach the skills, and on this day we saw Lenny the Lion and Ruby the Rabbit aiding the children in their left and right concepts.

The teachers follow the Bonkers music curriculum every day, but of course bring in any other incidental music they may wish to such as playing classical music at pack up time, finger plays, nursery rhymes, whatever they like.

Although we were unable to stay for the afternoon session, Galina told us that yoga and well being classes are run every afternoon for the 3-5 year old children. Hopefully we will get to experience this next time when we visit the Brighton centre.

“ Galina has just come back from Singapore and Indonesia where she was invited to present and run workshops for Early Childhood Educators and music sessions with children. She was also invited to present at the official opening of the Annual Leadership Forum, Sanur – Bali and work with pre-school children and educators in Green School, Bali which is well known for giving its students a relevant, holistic and green education in one of the most amazing environments on the planet.

To find out more about Bonkers and Galina’s trip check the NEWS on www.bonkersbeat.com/blog/ website.

To receive special gifts from Bonkers the Monkey, notes from Galina or to view music & yoga videos go to:

www.bonkersbeat.com/blog/    and join ‘Sing & Stretch Club’ NOW!

Bonkers Music Kinder and Childcare is situated at 49 Laura Street, Aspendale, Victoria (Melways Reference 92 J5) and is in the City of Kingston.

This post has been added to our Education Directory page.

 Bags, bags, bags …

they’re very useful things.

If you didn’t have bags what would you use to put your pine cones in!

Bags, bags, bags,

they’re very useful things.

 If you didn’t have bags what would you use to put your gloves in.

Bags, bags, bags,

they’re very useful things.

If you didn’t have bags what would you use to put your vehicles in!

Bags, bags, bags,

they’re very useful things.

If you didn’t have bags what would you use to put your cupcakes in!

Bags, bags, bags,

they’re very useful things.

If you didn’t have bags what would you use to put your loose parts in!…

We and the children love this song because we can alter it to suit any situation!

Here’s a very short video of the song and tune.

One of our homemade musical instruments was filling bottles to different depths with coloured water and then striking them to make a xylophone type of sound. When we saw the idea of using glow sticks to add interest to the bottles we thought we’d give that a go too.

Same great sound …

 just a different, fun angle.

We didn’t want to waste the glow sticks so put them to another use – to jazz up some very ordinary balloons for our littlest friend.

and as some funky jewelry for the big fella.

It was interesting trying to blow up the balloons and get the glowsticks in as well!!

The children took them into a darkened room and just loved the slightly spooky experience.

Even with the balloons deflated (as they did overnight), the glow sticks still looked really fascinating!

We came across some great ways of making interest bottles at Preschool Projects and one that we thought we would try is the rain stick, an instrument that is traditionally made from a cactus with its spikes pushed to the inside and some sort of grain such as wheat or small pebbles added to create that rain sound as it falls down past the spikes.

The one that we wanted to try needed to be much easier as we don’t have those cactuses readily available.

We gathered together a plastic bottle, toothpicks and some rice …

filled the bottle with the toothpicks …

and added some rice.

Unfortunately it just sounded like a normal shaker as the toothpicks all lined up and didn’t stay intertwined which meant the rice didn’t have anything to bounce off.

We had heaps of sticks with knobbly bits so decided to try them instead of the toothpicks as we felt they would stay crooked across the bottle.

We broke them up small and added the rice.

We sticky taped the lid on and found that it worked really well.

The only drawback here was that there wasn’t enough length in the container for the rice to have a decent distance to fall so we found a long cardboard tube …

stuck a bottle top in the end …

added longer lengths of stick …

and popped in some rice (not much).

We also stuck together two smaller tubes made of  thinner cardboard…

and decided that that one made the best sound!

We found this song by accident following our visit to the Melbourne Zoo, while looking on the internet for information on one of our most unusual Australian animal, the platypus – an egg laying mammal known as a monotreme. It really is the most fascinating animal!

We played the clip to the children and that was it, they wanted to learn the words.

It’s fast, it’s boppy and it’s sticky!

We LOVE it and so do they!

It’s called “The P-P-Platypus Song”

Enjoy the video but we’re warning you … it’s very, very catchy!

I’m a P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-P Platypus
I’m a P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-P Platypus
I’m a P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p
p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p Platypus.

Well I’m a Duck Billed P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-P Platypus

I’m a Web Footed P-p-p-p-p-p-p-P Platypus

I’m a Duck Billed
Web Footed
Funny lookin
Fast Swiming
Warm Blooded
Puddle Jumpin
Bottom Feedin’
Burrow Diggin
p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-P Platypus.

Well I’m an Egg Laying P-p-p-p-p-p-P Platypus

I’m a Flat Tailed P-p-p-p-p-p-P Platypus

I’m an Egg Laying
Flat Tailed
Funny lookin
Fast Swiming
Warm Blooded
Duck Billed
Web Footed
Burrow Diggin
p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-P Platypus.

Well I’m a P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p -P Platypus
I’m a P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p -P Platypus

I’m a P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p
p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p Platypus.

While had some lovely clean, dry, sifted sand left over from a workshop, so we asked the children if they would like to make some musical instruments with it.

We found some pop top bottles and funnels.

They half filled the bottles with sand …

then chose some bright cellophane to pop on the top with an elastic band.

Away they went, dancing to their own tunes!

The sound was quite muted – pretty nice for a change. It would be interesting to hear the difference in sound using a tin or cardboard container. Next time maybe.

One of the children’s favourite, most creative but messiest spot at kinder is at our “Invention Table“. We just let them go to it and look the other way until it is clean up time.

Just before we headed off on Christmas break the children were really making the most of this corner. They decided to decorate the dramatic play area under the verandah and make it look festive, like it was inside.

They strung up lengths of ribbon and criss crossed them from one side to the other.

Then they raided the collection of beautiful cards we had been receiving from them all and popped them over the ribbons.

They also found some left over polystyrene shapes which they quickly made into decorations with the addition of some pipe cleaners and the odd sequin then put them wherever they could find a spot.

They did end up having a small amount of time to actually play in there – but we guess that that wasn’t the real objective anyway!

How gorgeous does that look?

On wet days when everyone needs to have a nice calming activity, we love to do the song “Tickly Rain”.

It is from the Teddy Jumps CD by the Kids Music Company.

Everyone sits in a circle facing the back of the person in front of them and within reach of each other’s back.

It is very gentle music -  soothing even.

We pretend that rain is falling on different parts of our bodies like our head …

shoulders …

arms …

back ..

tummies …

and legs.

then during the chorus, everyone tickles the person in front’s back – like rain coming down.

drip, drop, drip, drop, drip, drop, drip, drop

By the time we do this three times, all of us are starting to roll our eyes with the relaxation of it all.

We find that this is a very good time to follow up with a story – when all the children are quiet and peaceful!

We were chatting to some other teachers about our J-E-S-U-S song and one mentioned that Santa has five letters too.

Perfect opportunity for making up another song.

We started the children off by telling them what we were going to do and gave them the line:

There was a man on Christmas Eve and Santa was his name-o!

Then it was their turn, not an easy task as the words had to fit the tune and have the correct number of syllables.

So all on their own they came up with:

There was a man with a bobble on his hat …

There was a man with a big fat belly …

There was a man who had a sleigh …

There was a man with a long white beard ..

There was a man with big black boots …

There was a man who carried a sack …

The children struggled a bit to fit reindeer into a line, but Sherry came up with a real ripper …

There was a man whose reindeer flew!

The “B-I-N-G-O” song is one that you can add lots of versus to as you make up new ones. When we sing S-A-N-T-A however we don’t do the “clap” version as it would take so long to include all the verses.

If we did we may still be singing it right up until E-A-S-T-E-R and quite frankly six letter words just don’t fit the tune!

At our Christmas Carols Concert tonight our children will be singing a selection of Christmas songs, one of which is called “10 little angels”.

In order to include everyone in the performance we have run off our ever popular song cards. One to represent each of the ten angels.

Ten children are given an angel card …

and one by one, as we go through the song they hold up their card …

Children without a card …

count the number of angels on their fingers as we sing.

Through the chorus the angel card holders wave the cards back and forth …

while the rest of the children take up their instruments and play.

Our version of the song goes like this …

(One by one the children raise the angel cards as we sing.)

There was 1, there were 2, there were 3 little angels.

There were 4, there were 5, there were 6 little angels.

There were 7, there were 8, there were 9 little angels.

10 little angels in the band!

(The children pick up their instruments and play)

Oh wasn’t that a band on Christmas morning,

Christmas morning,

Christmas morning.

Oh wasn’t that a band on Christmas morning,

Christmas morning soon!

You can listen to the tune here if you like!

We love that this song is another great opportunity to reinforce the children’s numeracy skills.

When the cards are handed out …

it is up to the children to assemble themselves into the correct numerical order …

something they do extremely well at this time of year!