Celebrating Christmas with Bangers & Smash

It’s been a busy November and December at Bangers & Smash with Christmas plays, concerts and events to prepare for and projects to bring to a close!

Kitty and Sarah presenting Carols in the Wildlife Garden

Kitty has continued to run indoor and outdoor sessions at Crystal Nurseries, Mother Goose Greendale, Under the Willow and School Outdoors Dulwich as well as hosting a Zoom Christmas Concert for Mother Goose Greendale and presenting Carols in the Wildlife Garden with Bangers & Smash co-founder, Sarah Allen.

Crystal Nurseries and Mother Goose Greendale

Diwali and Bonfire Night

Children and staff at Crystal Nurseries and Mother Goose Greendale celebrated Diwali and Bonfire Night in the first part of November.

They enjoyed:

• looking at pictures of rangoli patterns and Diwali lights while singing:

  • Diwali Is Coming

  • This Is The Way We Clean The House (to the tune of Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush)

• looking at a branch and listening to the leaves shaking

• talking about Bonfire Night and singing:

  • Bangers & Smash original, Red Flames, Yellow Flames

  • On Bonfire Night

Christmas

Crystal Nurseries then began rehearsals for their Christmas concerts, which we performed on Zoom and video in mid-December.

A couple of Santa’s reindeer!

Children and staff enjoyed dressing up as Mary & Joseph, shepherds, kings, angels, stars, robins, reindeer, Santas and trains and singing, dancing and playing to festive songs and carols, including:

• When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney

• Jingle Bells

• Rockin’ Robin

• Mary Had A Baby

• Twinkle, Twinkle, Christmas Star

• Away In A Manger

• Silent Night

• We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Meanwhile, children and staff at Mother Goose Greendale practised festive songs for their Zoom Christmas Concert on Sunday 19 December.

All set to start the Mother Goose Zoom Christmas Concert!

Over 25 families and members of staff attended and we had fun tapping wooden spoons to make the sound of Rudolph’s hooves, shaking bells in Jingle Bells and showing everyone our special stars and crowns!

Under the Willow and School Outdoors Dulwich

Under the Willow and School Outdoors Dulwich brought their termly projects to a close with Project Celebrations for parents and carers on Thursday 25 November.

Animals

Staff and children at Under the Willow presented poems, songs and activities based on the themes of Minibeasts, Animals on Land and Animals Under the Sea.

An animal crown

Children dressed up in animal crowns and sang and danced to:

• A Worm Is Very Wiggly

• Incey Wincey Spider

• There’s A Tiny Caterpillar On A Leaf

• Sticky Situation by Kiko Bun

• The Ladybugs’ Picnic

• Down In The Jungle

• One Big Elephant

• Monkey, Monkey, Up The Tree

• Bangers & Smash original, Monkeys Are Clever

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I Caught A Fish Alive

• Little Crab

• The Children Went To Sea, Sea, Sea

• Baby Shark

• Under The Sea from The Little Mermaid

Trees

Meanwhile, staff and children at School Outdoors Dulwich presented songs and activities based on the theme of Trees.

Getting ready for School Outdoors Dulwich’s Project Celebration!

Children played the names of nuts and fruits on sticks and shakers and sang and danced to:

• Five Little Leaves

• The Parts Of Trees

• If You’re Ever In The Forest

• Bangers & Smash original, I Like Trees

• Under The Baobab Tree

• Yellow Bird

• Fanga Alafia

Both nurseries celebrated Christmas with performances for parents and carers, including festive songs at Under the Willow and a musical play at School Outdoors Dulwich.

Carols in the Wildlife Garden

And finally, Kitty and Sarah presented their annual Carols in the Wildlife Garden event on Sunday 12 December.

Over 80 people turned up to make Christmas wreaths, sing festive songs and share mulled drinks and mince pies around the fire pit in the Mother Goose Wildlife Garden in Camberwell.

Making Christmas wreaths in the Mother Goose Wildlife Garden

One happy Mum said: ‘My daughter instructed me that if you ever have any other events, we have to go. She loved it!’

To read Kitty’s blog post about Carols in the Wildlife Garden, please click here.

Merry Christmas from Bangers & Smash!

We’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Bangers & Smash – we look forward to seeing you in 2022!

Celebrating Christmas and Earth Story with Bangers & Smash!

We’ve had an busy end to the Autumn term at Bangers & Smash with rehearsals, performances and an outdoor community singalong!

Christmas Shows

Preparations for Christmas began in November with Crystal Nurseries rehearsing Kitty’s version of The Ugly Bug Ball (featuring a host of songs about minibeasts) and Mother Goose – Greendale practising their Christmas Show.

Come December, parents and carers enjoyed performances in all four settings. Shows were packed to the rafters and it was wonderful to see the children (and, in some cases, staff!) dressed up in their costumes, singing their hearts out.

Check out some of the Ugly Bugs at Smart Kids Christmas Show!

Earth Story

Meanwhile, at Under the Willow, we brought our 10-week project, Earth Story, to a close with our final music sessions and Earth Story Project Celebration.

Our last two sessions were about:

• Dinosaurs and prehistoric animals

• Early man

Children enjoyed:

• choosing a toy dinosaur and singing Ten Big Dinosaurs and Where’s The Dinosaur?

• stomping around the room and roaring to The Prehistoric Animal Brigade

• dancing to Walk the Dinosaur by Was Not Was

• singing and dancing to a Nigerian welcome song, Funga Alafia

Inspired by Older Than The Stars, a beautifully illustrated picture book about the origins of the universe, our Earth Story Project Celebration brought together songs and activities from the previous ten sessions in a performance for parents and carers on 28 November 2018.

Winter Tree Festival

We finished the term with three sessions on lights and lanterns as part of Under the Willow’s Winter Tree Festival.

In the first two sessions, we looked at how light plays a part in three seasonal festivals, Hanukkah, Diwali and Christmas, while in the last session, we sang a selection of Christmas songs, including:

• Here We Go Round The Christmas Tree

• Let It Snow

• When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney

• Jingle Bells

Carols in the Wildlife Garden

Our final Bangers & Smash session of 2018 brought co-founders, Kitty and Sarah, together for an afternoon of singing and Christmas wreath-making in the Mother Goose Nursery Wildlife Garden.

Despite freezing temperatures and rain, the event saw families and members of the local community join in with carols and Christmas songs while tucking into mulled wine and mince pies courtesy of wildlife gardener and host, Di Wallace.

Thanks to everyone at Mother Goose for inviting us to perform and a very Happy New Year from Bangers & Smash!

'Funga Alafia': a welcome song from Nigeria!

We’ve had another great October at Bangers & Smash, singing songs from Africa and the Caribbean in celebration of Black History Month!

We’ve started each session with a name song from South Africa, Haya Ma, in which the children say their names and clap four times. It’s been lovely seeing even the youngest babies and toddlers recognise and respond to this simple song.

Moving on, we’ve looked at The Skin You Live In, a beautifully illustrated book which uses sumptuous language and imagery to celebrate skin colour:

• your coffee and cream skin, your warm cocoa dream skin, your chocolate chip, double dip, sundae supreme skin

• your marshmallow treat skin, your spun sugar sweet skin, your cherry topped, candy dropped, frosting complete skin

• your butterscotch gold skin, your lemon tart bold skin, your mountain high, apple pie, cookie dough rolled skin

Children have looked at their own and their friends' skin and Kitty has talked about how lots of people with black and brown skin come from the continent of Africa and live all over the world.

Our main song, Funga Alafia, comes from West Africa. There are many versions of this song but Kitty has chosen one by Iya and the Kuumba Kids with lyrics about Nigeria:

Funga alafia, ashe, ashe
Funga alafia, ashe, ashe

It’s a welcome song from Nigeria
Bringing peace and love to everyone
Grab a welcome if you please
I have nothing up my sleeves!

Children have had fun playing along to Funga Alafia with instruments from Drums for Schools’ fantastic Nursery Rhythm Kit. The kit contains a variety of instruments from around the world, including claves, agogos, shakers, scrapers, chime bars and drums.

Kitty has also asked Black and Brown staff members to share songs from their childhoods and heritages.

Big thanks to the following:

• Kemi for Labe Igi Orombo, a Nigerian song in Yoruba about playing under an orange tree

• Tolu for Bata Mi A Dun Ko Ko Ka, a Nigerian song in Yoruba about the benefits of study, and Aiku, Ajé, Isegun, Ojo ru, Ojo bo, Eti, Abameta, a song about the days of the week

• Juliet for O Kereke, a Nigerian song in Igbo in which the children sit opposite each other in a line with their legs outstretched and bounce a rolled-up cloth from one end to the other

• Jane for Kedu Onye Ga Abu Ojim, a Nigerian song in Igbo about finding a friend

• Sarah and Trianna for Kye Kye Kule, a West African call and response song

• Vinette for Evenin' Time, a song by Jamaican poet, folklorist, writer and educator, Louise Bennett

• Israel and Vinette for Go Down Emmanuel Road, a Jamaican song about passing stones around a circle, and Mango Time, a song about eschewing coffee in favour of mango juice

• Marcia for Brown Girl In The Ring, a Jamaican song about dancing

In addition, both children and staff have enjoyed singing and dancing to two songs about beans, Jumping Beans and Nzama, Nzama (a Malawian song), before getting on down to Blame It On The Boogie by Michael Jackson.

Earth Story – the beginning of life

At new Bangers & Smash nursery, Under the Willow, we’ve continued our 10-week project, Earth Story, during which we are learning about the origins of the Earth and its inhabitants.

Our next four sessions have been about:

• the elements: earth, fire, water, air

• simple life forms

• fossils, rocks and minerals

• volcanoes

Children have enjoyed:

• waving scarves and moving to Feux D’Artifice by Debussy and Vltava by Smetana while thinking about fire and water

• creating their own bacterium from scrunched-up newspaper and wriggling along the floor to Nautilus by B Bumble & the Stingers

• singing Let’s Dig, Dig, Dig, a song about finding fossils, rocks and minerals, and My Roots Go Down, a song by Sarah Pirtle, which Kitty has adapted to be about mountains and volcanoes

There are many versions of this last song but here’s Bangers & Smash’s favourite!

Under the Willow INSET and Project Celebration

Kitty also ran a successful INSET session at Under the Willow on Wednesday 24 October 2018.

With a variety of activities designed to explore teachers’ voices and vocal range, the session looked at:

• building confidence in singing and leading songs

• finding ways to reinforce songs from music sessions during the rest of the school day

Kitty, staff and children are working towards Under the Willow’s upcoming Earth Story Project Celebration and are looking forward to sharing songs and stories about the earth with parents and carers on Wednesday 28 November 2018.

Carols in the Wildlife Garden

Kitty (guitar/voice) and Sarah (flute/accordion) are delighted to have been invited to sing and play Christmas songs in the Mother Goose Nursery Wildlife Garden from 12-4pm on Saturday 15 December 2018.

As well as mulled drinks and mince pies, there’ll be wreath-making and, of course, the chance to sing your hearts out with Bangers & Smash.

Carols in the Wildlife Garden is a FREE family event so please bring your little ones along and join in the fun!

Getting ready for Christmas with Bangers & Smash

As always, November and December have been incredibly busy months as children and staff at regular Bangers & Smash nurseries prepare for Christmas shows.

Photo by Nong on Unsplash

We've had scripts to write, songs to learn, costumes to sort out and rehearsals to organise – and it's all been brilliant fun!

Crystal Nurseries put on three wonderful performances of Bangers & Smash original show, Christmas at the Toyshop, in Peckham, Nunhead and Lewisham. All shows were a huge hit, the highlight being a performance by Goslings Day Nursery at Hollydale Primary School in Nunhead. This was a first for Goslings as not only did the children travel by coach to the school but they also performed onstage to a hall packed to the rafters with family and friends!

Staff and children at all three nurseries enjoyed rehearsing and performing the shows and special thanks go to Devina and Natasha at Smart Kids Nursery who dressed up in tutus to join the Dancing Dolls in a ballet/nu-disco dance mash-up!

Meanwhile, at Mother Goose Nursery – Greendale, staff and children began rehearsing for their Christmas show way back in October! Written and directed by new manager, Laura, the show featured songs celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah. The children enjoyed dressing up as Christmas puddings, Christmas trees, snowmen, stars, angels, shepherds, kings, a donkey and, of course, Mary and Joseph.

Two packed performances were enjoyed by parents and families, the highlight being watching Joseph fall asleep on Mary's shoulder during the Nativity scene!

Mulled drinks and mince pies in the Wildlife Garden before the Mother Goose Christmas Show

A couple of weeks later, Kitty visited the nursery again to lead Carols in the Wildlife Garden. This free event for families and the local community featured carol singing and Christmas wreath-making as visitors enjoyed mulled drinks round the fire pit and delicious homemade cakes courtesy of wildlife gardener and host, Di. Kitty will be back in the Wildlife Garden this Spring with a Bangers & Smash singing and instrument-making session so watch this space for details.

We rounded off December with a children's party for former pupil and longtime Bangers & Smash fan, R------, in East Dulwich. He and his friends enjoyed a magical Christmas adventure with snow, jingle bells, dancing around the Christmas tree and, of course, lots of singing!

All in all, it's been a fantastic 2017 – Bangers and Smash's 30th anniversary! A very Happy New Year to everyone – parents, children, staff and management – and here's to another magnificent year of creative music-making in 2018!