Riding on an elephant with Bangers & Smash!

It’s been an exciting September at Bangers & Smash with a series of music sessions inspired by Kitty’s Summer trip to Asia!

Photo by paweldotio on Unsplash

Taking elephants as our main theme, we’ve looked at:

• a dancing elephant in the book, Lenny Leopard’s Jungle Dance by Guy Parker-Rees

• a soft toy elephant

• a picture of a family of Indian elephants

Kitty has asked the children:

• What does an elephant look like?

• What does it sound like?

We’ve listened to a recording of elephants in the jungle and copied the sounds they make. Kitty has passed round a bicycle horn and we’ve talked about how the sound that comes out of an elephant’s trunk is similar to the sound that comes out of a trumpet.

We’ve followed this by listening to a recording of a short poem, An Elephant Goes Like This And That, and repeating the poem with actions.

Our main song has been Bangers & Smash original, Riding On An Elephant, in which the children intersperse short sung phrases with percussion breaks.

In the first session, Kitty has prepared the children by asking them to tap their knees, stamp their feet and bang on the floor in the gaps while in subsequent sessions, the children have played on junk drums made out of recycled plastic and cardboard containers.

Each session has included the opportunity to rehearse and then perform the song with children learning when to play and when to stop through Kitty’s use of simple hand signals.

Following on from this, Kitty has shown the children an Indonesian statuette of the Hindu elephant god, Ganesh, and invited individual children to the front to try on a T-shirt with a picture of Ganesh.

We’ve passed round a gangsa (a type of metallophone used mainly in Balinese and Javanese Gamelan music) and children have taken it in turns to play.

Returning to Lenny Leopard’s Jungle Dance, Kitty has asked the children to look at a picture of a snake:

• What part of the elephant does the snake look like?

• How does it move?

We’ve listened to two tracks from an album of traditional Thai music:

• In the first – a recording of a Thai flute or khlui – we’ve put our arms in front of our faces and moved them like elephants’ trunks

• In the second – a recording of a Thai ensemble or piphat – we’ve moved round the room on our hands and knees, waving our arms like trunks, spraying each other with (pretend) water and trumpeting like elephants

In addition, Kitty has brought in Indonesian sarungs and udengs (a type of headcloth worn by men) and invited individual children to dress up as elephant riders.

We’ve finished each session by marching to music, including:

• The Liberty Bell

• Colonel Hathi’s March (from The Jungle Book)

Earth Story – the origins of the Earth

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

Our first three sessions have been about:

• the Earth

• the Solar System

• the Big Bang

As well as teaching two songs by Canadian children’s songwriter, Raffi – Big Beautiful Planet and One Light, One Sun – Kitty has introduced a variety of musical activities, including:

• rolling a globe to different children while singing a name song

• marching round the sun waving yellow scarves and playing bells

• tapping the names of the planets with claves

• playing a Big Bang on a djembe

• dancing to Walking On Sunshine by Katrina & the Waves

Both children and staff have enjoyed vocalising, physicalising, dramatising and creating musical responses to this exciting theme!

Hey, Stop Shaking Your Tail!

We've kept things nice and simple at Bangers & Smash this March with a series of sessions on the theme of pets!

Photo by The Lucky Neko on Unsplash

Kitty has brought in a bag full of soft toys and introduced a new pet each week:

• a dog

• a cat

• a mouse

• a rabbit

Children and staff have enjoyed singing hello to the pets and talking about their own pets at home.

We've learned songs and nursery rhymes about dogs, cats, mice and rabbits, including:

• How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?

• Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been?

• Hickory Dickory Dock

• Little Peter Rabbit Had A Fly Upon His Nose

We've also sung and danced to two new tracks:

• What's New, Pussycat? by Tom Jones: The children have picked up the lyrics really quickly and have enjoyed spreading their arms wide and singing What's New, Pussycat? Woah, woah wo-o-o-oh at the tops of their voices!

• Hey, Stop Shaking Your Tail! by Bangers & Smash: Kitty has used puppets to mime a dog and a cat shaking their tails, paws and ears. The children have loved shaking their own tails, paws and ears and running away as the dog tries to lick their faces!

In the final week, we've celebrated Easter with a series of songs and activities based on rabbits, chickens and eggs:

• We've gathered around a cloth with silver stars and moons on it and sung Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

• We've bounced our toy rabbit on the cloth while singing two new songs, The Easter Bunny's Feet go Hop, Hop, Hop and What Shall We Do With An Easter Bunny?

• We've sung Chick, Chick, Chicken and taken it in turns to play some egg shakers and cluck like chickens

STOP PRESS!! STOP PRESS!! STOP PRESS!! STOP PRESS!! 

Don't miss Bangers & Smash's singing and instrument-making session at the Mother Goose Wildlife Garden in Denmark Hill!

Kitty and Sarah will join wildlife gardener, Di Wallace, from 1-5pm on Saturday 28 April for this FREE session for families and members of the local community, part-sponsored by Southwark Council.

We'll be showcasing new songs about wildlife and gardening as well as making drums and claves from recycled and natural materials so do come along and bring your littl'uns!

For more information, please click here.

'Bata Mi A Dun Ko Ko Ka': singing songs from Africa and the Caribbean

What a fabulous October we've had at Bangers & Smash singing songs from Africa and the Caribbean in celebration of Black History Month!

We've started our sessions with a song we learned last month: Fingers Like To Wiggle Waggle. This month, we've chosen a different body part to wiggle waggle each week and the children have had fun wiggling their toes, bottoms and noses.

We've also continued singing the Dipidu song, concentrating on the second line in which the children insert their own names in place of 'dipidu'. As part of this activity, Kitty has passed an African shaker around the circle and encouraged the children to shake it and say their names. Older children have been able to shake once for each syllable of their name (for example, Femi would shake twice [Fe-mi] and Annabel three times [Ann-a-bel]) while younger children have practised playing the shaker freestyle while saying their names at the same time. This allows the children to work on their fine motor skills while linking movement to sound and, in the case of the older children, rhythm – a great introduction to the art of multi-tasking!

Kitty has gone on to introduce the theme of Black History Month by asking the children to stroke their skin:

'What does it feel like?'

• 'My skin feels soft'

• 'I like to stroke my hand'

What colour is it?'

• 'My skin is brown like chocolate ice cream'

• 'My skin is pink and white like strawberry milkshake'

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. She has asked the children to tap word rhythms based on the names of vegetables and fruit from Africa and the Caribbean (plantain, cassava, butternut squash / ackee, banana, pomegranate). With the help of Drums for Schools' fantastic Nursery Rhythm Kit (read Kitty's review on the Music Education UK website here), the children have been able to tap, bang, shake and scrape their way through a variety of world music instruments, including hand drums, agogo bells, tiktoks, frog scrapers and more!

Kitty has gone on to ask if black and brown staff members would like to share songs from their childhoods and heritages and, as always, they have come up trumps with a wonderful selection of songs from Africa and the Caribbean.

Special thanks to the following:

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

• Israel for Mango Time, a Jamaican folk song about making the best of the mango crop

• Sharon for two popular Jamaican songs, Banana Boat Song and Jamaican Farewell

• Tolu and Taiwo for Bata Mi A Dun Ko Ko Ka, a Nigerian song in Yoruba about the benefits of study ('If I study hard, I will wear high heels')

• Juliet for O Kereke, a Nigerian song in Igbo in which the children sit 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 and circle dance in Igbo about finding a friend

• Nkechi for Onye Ga Agba Agwu, a Nigerian song and circle dance in Igbo about dancing

• Ann-Marie for A Te Wa, a Sierra Leonean song and circle dance in Creole about dancing

In addition, both children and staff have enjoyed dancing to two more Jamaican songs in the Mento tradition:

• Peanut Vendor by the Kew Park Mento Band

• Slide Mongoose by the Blue Glaze Mento Band

And finally, since we're dancing, we hope you enjoy this video of Oliver Mobeli from Central African Republic!