Minibeasts and more with Bangers & Smash!

What a fabulous May it's been at Bangers & Smash with plenty of sunshine bringing the minibeasts out in force!

Photo © Kitty Pidduck / Bangers & Smash

We've started our sessions with a song we learned last month: Fingers All. This was one of the first songs Kitty and Sarah wrote together and it's wonderful to think we're still using it 30 years on! With lyrics about everything from cats and centipedes to toothbrushes and helicopters, the song encourages the children to work on their fine and gross motor skills by making small and large movements with their fingers, hands and arms as they sing.

We've gone on to learn two songs about spiders: Incey Wincey Spider and There's A Spider On The Floor. Kitty has walked a toy tarantula up the children's bodies and onto their heads and they have enjoyed squealing and giggling at the feel of the spider's legs in their hair!

Next, we've chosen individual children to lie in the middle or at the front, wrapped in colourful woven scarves from South America. Our song, A Caterpillar Crawled To The Top Of A Tree, sees the children first sleeping, then hatching into butterflies and and finally spreading their wings and flying.

We've followed this by throwing brightly coloured silk scarves into the air and catching them. The children have had fun choosing two scarves each as butterfly wings. Kitty has commented on each child's choice e.g. 'Izzy is a green and purple butterfly', 'Jamie is a yellow and orange butterfly' etc. We've then paraded round in a circle fluttering like butterflies to Bangers & Smash original, Flutter By.

Each session has finished with The Ladybugs' Picnic, a catchy song in which the children count up to 12 in sets of three:

'1 2 3... 4 5 6... 7 8 9... 10 11 12
The ladybugs came to the ladybugs' picnic'

Kitty has used the song to introduce two sounds – tapping and tooting. The children have tapped using claves during the verses and tooted using empty cardboard tubes during the middle 'solo' section. After much repetition, the children have been able to remember when to play sticks and when to play 'trumpets'. It's been amazing watching them gain vocal confidence through whispering, shouting, speaking and singing into their tubes and great to see them pick up a simple AABA (verse/verse/solo section/verse) arrangement.

Everything grows...

This April, we've been learning about things that grow at Bangers & Smash.

Photo by Dean Ward on Unsplash

We've started each session by wiggling our fingers up in the air and down on the ground before moving them onto our toes, knees, tummies, necks, faces and heads. What does this feel like?

• 'It's tickly'

• 'Like spiders!'

Our song, Fingers All, has allowed us to work on our dexterity and spatial awareness by stretching and clenching our fingers and hands. Next month, we'll extend this activity by introducing verses with specific finger shapes and movements – a cat stroking its whiskers, a centipede crawling on the mat – allowing us to practise our fine motor skills in a fun and creative way.

We've extended this finger play to think about the idea of roots growing down into the ground. What has roots? The children have had all sorts of ideas: a tree, a flower, grass. Inspired by the video below, we've sung My Roots Go Down with lots of wonderful actions. Both children and teachers have loved this simple, engaging song – many thanks to Professor Pamela Burnard from the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, for pointing Kitty in its direction!

We've followed this by listening and singing along to Everything Grows by Raffi – again, with lots of actions. As the the children have become familiar with the song, they've been able to list all the things in it that grow: babies and animals, fingers and toes, a blade of grass, a red, red rose and – last but not least – mummies and daddies!

Finally, the instrumental part of our sessions has featured two traditional songs, Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary and In And Out The Dusty Bluebells.

• In the former, we've put two 'sounds' in the middle of our circle: a set of bells and a shaker made from goats' hooves (which look and sound a bit like shells). These represent Mary's 'silver bells and cockle shells' and children have taken it in turns to choose one then the other to shake, before walking round the circle tapping the girls ('pretty maids') or boys ('pretty boys') on the head.

• In the latter, younger children have sat in a circle playing bells while Kitty weaves 'in and out the dusty bluebells' leading one child by the hand. Older children have learned the well-known game which accompanies this song whereby one child weaves in and out during the first part of the song before tapping the shoulder of the child they end up behind and singing:

Tippy, tippy tap toe on my shoulder
Tippy, tippy tap toe on my shoulder
Tippy, tippy tap toe on my shoulder
You will be my partner

In other news, we had another successful Music in the Wildlife Garden event as guests of the Mother Goose Wildlife Garden on Saturday 29 April.

Kitty was joined by Bangers & Smash co-founder, Sarah Allen, for an afternoon of singing and instrument-making with families and members of the local community.

The sun shone as we sang songs around the garden and made shakers out of plastic containers filled with rice and claves out of bamboo. The children really enjoyed playing their instruments along to songs old and new, including Bangers & Smash originals, Owl Babies, Tadpole and Flutter By.

Migration and hibernation take us from Autumn into Winter

This November, as the weather gets colder and the festive season looms, we've been rehearsing our Christmas shows in some regular Bangers & Smash nurseries while thinking about Autumn and Winter in others.

Photo by Hans Poppe on Unsplash

Starting with the finger rhyme, Five Little Leaves, we've looked at how the trees lose their leaves as the wind blows through the town – brrr!

What do the animals do when it gets cold?

• The hedgehog burrows his way under some dead leaves and goes to sleep in our song, Sleep, Little Hedgehog. While some children like to curl up like hedgehogs, others enjoy shouting 'Wake up!' to remind their friends that Spring is on its way

How about the birds?

• Some migrate to warmer climes as demonstrated in Fly, Little Bird, a gentle song in a minor key in which the children flap their wings and fly away till Spring

• Others wait out the freezing weather with help from us in the form of bird seed, hanging feeders, fat balls and stale bread. In the song, Feed The Birds, from the film, Mary Poppins, the children take it in turns to purchase some (pretend) bird seed for 'Tuppence a bag' and put it into their friends' upturned mouths as they chorus, 'Tweet, tweet!'

Rounding off these sessions on seasonal migration and hibernation, both children and staff have loved flapping their wings and shaking their tailfeathers to The Jacksons' ever-popular Rockin' Robin!

Celebrating Black History Month with Bangers & Smash!

We always look forward to October at Bangers & Smash because it's Black History Month!

This year, we've had a blast singing and sharing songs and stories from Africa and the Caribbean while thinking about The Skin You Live In. This beautifully illustrated book 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

The children have enjoyed looking at their own and their friends' skin while singing and dancing to Brown Girl in the Ring in a circle.

Black and Brown staff members at regular Bangers & Smash nurseries have shared songs and stories from their childhoods and heritages.

Thanks to the following:

• Vinette and Israel for Go Down Emmanuel Road, a Jamaican song about passing stones around a circle

• Elizabeth for Nzama, a Malawian song about some tasty beans

• Ronke and Yemi for Labe Igi Orombo, a Nigerian song in the Yoruba language about playing under an orange tree

• Juliet and Nkechi for O Kereke, a Nigerian song in the Igbo language about passing stones around a circle

• Elizabeth for Benyi Ni Biti, a Ghanaian song about a man who plays a drum

Thanks also to Drums for Schools for their wonderful Nursery Rhythm Kit which we've used to accompany all the above songs throughout the month. The children have loved choosing their own instruments and using them to keep a pulse and join in with simple repeating rhythms.

We've also enjoyed dancing to Get Up, Edina by Desmond Dekker and Young, Gifted & Black by Bob & Marcia.

Israel said:

'Kitty has shown so much interest during Black History Month. She has done her research and got music from Africa and Jamaica. Kitty has raised an awareness to brown and chocolate skin children, how talented and beautiful they are.'