Here at Bangers & Smash, we’ve welcomed the Summer with sessions on Minibeasts, the Sun & the Moon, Space & Planets and Weights & Forces!
‘I like the bee and the bee likes me!’ Children in the Mother Goose Wildlife Garden made up their own poem about a bee collecting nectar
Kitty is now back teaching face-to-face in all Bangers & Smash nurseries although sadly, Zoom sessions with The Elephants – a fabulous group of families who’ve been singing together since April 2020 – have come to an end in preparation for the children heading into Reception this September.
Regular nurseries and outdoor settings
Minibeasts
At Crystal Nurseries, School Outdoors Dulwich and Mother Goose Greendale, our Minibeasts theme has included songs and musical activities about bees, worms, ants, snails, spiders, caterpillars, butterflies, ladybirds and more.
Children and staff enjoyed:
making their hands into a (pretend) beehive and singing Here Is The Beehive
learning I Like The Bee, a poem about how bees collect nectar and make honey written by Kitty with the help of children in the Mother Goose Wildlife Garden
singing A Worm Is Very Wiggly and making up their own actions for different minibeasts
holding a leaf and singingThere’s A Tiny Caterpillar On A Leaf to the tune of She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain
looking at a picture of ants and singing The Ants Went Marching with actions
singing two action songs about spiders:
Incey Wincey Spider
There’s A Spider On The Floor
pretending to be stuck in a web and dancing to Sticky Situation by Kiko Bun
taking it in turns to hide under a scarf while the rest of the group searches for a snail in Follow The Silver Trail
playing sticks and pretend trumpets to The Ladybugs’ Picnic
The Sun and the Moon
While School Outdoors Dulwich and Mother Goose Greendale continued with our Minibeasts theme during July, Crystal Nurseries spent the month learning about the Sun and the Moon.
As well as teaching a lovely song by Raffi, Big Beautiful Planet, Kitty introduced a variety of musical activities, including:
rolling an earth ball to different children while singing a name song
finding yellow things (scarf, star, banana, chick, duck etc) and showing them to the sun while chanting, Come on, su-un… come on, su-un… come on, su-un… shine!
looking at a picture of the sun and singing, Mister Golden Sun
playing bells and singing, You Are My Sunshine
playing peekaboo with a cloth embroidered with stars and moons
looking at a rocket and a moon lamp while:
joining in with actions to Up Like A Rocket by Steve Grocott
singing Zoom, Zoom, Zoom and Hey, Diddle, Diddle
making the face of the Man in the Moon with different kinds of food while singing Aiken Drum
clapping along while Kitty taps a pulse on two salad servers to And he played upon a ladle, a ladle, a ladle… And he played upon a ladle and his name was Aiken Drum!
lying down with the lights off and listening to a lullaby, Winkum, Winkum
Check out our Aiken Drum!
Under the Willow
Meanwhile at Under the Willow, Kitty was able to support the nursery’s monthly themes with sessions on Space & Planets in June and Weights & Forces in July and August.
Space & Planets
As well as singing songs about the sun and the moon (see above), Kitty introduced the following musical activities:
singing Big, Beautiful Planet by Raffi
rolling an earth ball to different children while singing a name song then asking them to roll it to somebody else
teaching a call and response song, Solar System, during which children chant and tap the names of the planets
walking round in a circle then switching directions to Sally Go Round The Moon
making the face of the Man in the Moon with different kinds of food while singing Aiken Drum
clapping along while Kitty taps a pulse on two salad servers to And he played upon a ladle, a ladle, a ladle… And he played upon a ladle and his name was Aiken Drum!
teaching new words about a giant ball of glowing gas to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
dancing to Walking On Sunshine by Katrina & the Waves
In addition, preschoolers learned a leaving song, Big School, Big School, Here We Come.
Weights & Forces
This was a new theme for Bangers & Smash and Kitty scratched her head about it for a while before coming up with some rather cool musical activities:
singing an action song, A Penny Balloon
thinking about animals that are heavy and light and wondering what they might sound like while:
looking at a toy elephant and listening to a recording of an elephant trumpeting
mimicking the sound of the elephant and waving their arms in front of their noses like trunks
looking at a toy mouse and pretending to squeak and eat cheese
wondering whether each animal’s sound is loud or quiet and how that relates to their size
listening to a recording of An Elephant Goes Like This & That
learning actions to a new song, One Big Elephant, One Tiny Mouse, then adding in a dinosaur and an ant
singing Hickory Dickory Dock and thinking about a pendulum swinging from side to side while playing a pulse on claves
trying the pulse at different speeds
looking at:
a picture of children on a seesaw and singing Seesaw, Marjorie Daw
a clockwork roundabout and singing Round & Round On A Roundabout
getting into pairs and singing Row Your Boat
In addition, under-twos enjoyed singing and dancing to songs from Uganda and Malawi while looking at our Book of the Month, Handa’s Surprise.
Summer activities with Bangers & Smash
We’re proud to announce that Kitty has been invited to run a wildlife music session at Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses on 25 August. This is a new setting for Bangers & Smash and we do hope you’ll come along if you can!
In addition, Kitty and Sarah will be hosting another Music in the Wildlife Garden event at Mother Goose Wildlife Garden on 25 September.
There’s more information about both events at:
And if you’d like to book your own wildlife music session, please click here!