Bangers & Smash music sessions halted due to Covid-19

With the rapid spread of Covid-19, musicians and music teachers across the globe have found themselves in the unprecedented position of being unable to teach face-to-face.

Here at Bangers & Smash, we continued to provide regular and bespoke music sessions in all our settings until they were asked to close by the government on 20 March.

Like many music providers, we are looking for ways to teach online during this difficult time as a way to provide parents, carers and settings with continuity and support for the children in their care. Please watch this space!

In the meantime, here’s an update on this month’s sessions up to 20 March.

Under the Sea at Bangers & Smash regular nurseries

At regular Bangers & Smash nurseries, Kitty delivered sessions on the theme of Under the Sea.

Children and staff enjoyed:

• using a blue cloth to create small and big waves while singing Little Ripples

• lifting the cloth over their heads and travelling down under the sea

• counting to 10 on their fingers while singing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I Caught A Fish Alive

• looking at a picture of a submarine while singing Yellow Submarine

• thinking about animals that live under the sea and how they might sound and move (e.g. wobbling jellyfish, snapping shark)

• making a soundscape using the above sounds and actions

• looking at a picture of a nautilus and swimming slowly round in a circle to Nautilus by B Bumble & the Stingers

• singing and performing actions to Baby Beluga by Raffi

Africa Project at Under the Willow

Meanwhile, at Under the Willow, we started rehearsing for our Africa Project Celebration, which was due to take place on 25 March but was sadly cancelled.

Children and staff were still able to enjoy:

• singing:

  • Seven Continents

  • Haya Ma, a South African hello song

  • Nzama, Nzama, a Malawian song about cooking beans in a pot

  • three songs about animals, Monkey, Monkey, Up The Tree, Here’s A Great Big Lion and Alice The Camel

  • Bangers & Smash original, Funky Pharoah

  • three traditional songs, Sali Bonani (Zimbabwe), Kye Kye Kule (Ghana) and Ram Sam Sam (Morocco)

• listening, playing and dancing to:

  • Pata Pata by Miriam Makeba (South Africa)

  • Walking With The San by Charlie Simpson & San Bushmen (Namibia)

  • a traditional Kalahari nomad chant (Botswana)

  • Ssematimba Ne Kikwabanga by Albert Ssempeke (Uganda)

  • traditional Sufi music (Egypt)

  • Fanga Alafia by Iya and the Kuumba Kids (Nigeria)

• acting out the story of Handa’s Surprise (Kenya)

Short Breaks at Waterman’s Arts Centre

And finally, Kitty’s multi-arts project for children in the early years with additional needs came to an early close at Waterman’s Arts Centre.

In the last two sessions, parents and children enjoyed singing, playing and dancing to original live music as well as:

• decorating garden trowels

• playing with ducks and frogs in a sensory pond

• doing frog life cycle puzzles

Aislinn helping children to decorate trowels

Kitty was joined by fellow early years music specialist, musician and storyteller, Steve Grocott, and arts psychotherapy student and creative support leader, Aislinn Jeffers, both of whom helped to create this exciting new education pilot as well as playing in the Short Breaks band!

Mellow Yellow, Africa and more with Bangers & Smash!

To counteract the cold, dreary weather, we’ve been learning about all things yellow this February at Bangers & Smash!

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Children at regular Bangers & Smash nurseries have spent the month singing and dancing to:

• Yellow Bird – a traditional Haitian song

• Banana Banana Banana by the Kew Park Mento Band

• Songs about ducks, including:

  • Six Little Ducks That I Once Knew

  • Five Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day

  • Ducks Like Rain by Raffi

• Here’s A Great Big Lion – an original song by Helen McCookerybook

Children have enjoyed thinking about things that are yellow, both generally and in their immediate environments, including:

• the sun, moon and stars

• lemons, pineapples and bananas

• daffodils, buttercups and sunflowers

• bees, beehives and honey

• clothes, shoes and wellies

• shelves, cushions and curtains

• blonde hair

• sand

As well as using yellow scarves to create wings and fly up into a banana tree during Yellow Bird, children have enjoyed counting plastic ducks in Six Little Ducks That I Once Knew, waddling round in a circle in Ducks Like Rain and taking it in turns to hold a soft toy lion in Here’s A Great Big Lion.

Africa Project at Under the Willow

Meanwhile, at Under the Willow, we’ve continued our 11-week Africa Project with sessions on:

• African music

• Egypt and the pyramids

• The plains of Africa

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Children have enjoyed:

• Listening and moving to Ssematimba Ne Kikwabanga by Ugandan musician, Albert Ssempeke

• Singing a Ghanaian chant, Obwisana, while playing instruments made from natural materials from Drums for Schools’ Nursery Rhythm Kit

• Playing (i) a steady pulse and (ii) a simple ostinato (repeating rhythm) on claves while singing Bangers & Smash original, Funky Pharoah

• Dancing to traditional Egyptian music

• Taking it in turns to hold a soft toy lion while singing Helen McCookerybook’s Here’s A Great Big Lion

• Shaking African tree cones (which have a nut inside) and trotting like zebras during Bangers & Smash original, Big, Strong, Stripy Zebras

Short Breaks at Waterman’s Arts Centre

And finally, Kitty’s new multi-arts project for children in the early years with additional needs has continued at Waterman’s Arts Centre with more original songs and stories inspired by nature and wildlife.

Children have enjoyed singing, playing and dancing to live music as well as:

• making and playing junk drums

• colouring in pictures

• decorating gardening aprons with Art Jar

Early years music specialist, storyteller and mandolin player extraordinaire, Steve Grocott!

Kitty is joined by fellow early years music specialist, musician and storyteller, Steve Grocott, and arts psychotherapy student and creative support leader, Aislinn Jeffers, both of whom are helping to create this exciting new education pilot as well as playing in the Short Breaks band!

The Land of Ice & Snow, Chinese New Year, Africa and more with Bangers & Smash!

January 2020 has brought a host of exciting new themes and projects for Bangers & Smash!

Regular Bangers & Smash nurseries have spent the month learning about:

• The Land of Ice & Snow

• Chinese New Year

The Land of Ice & Snow

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Children have enjoyed:

• rubbing their hands together and singing finger rhymes before dressing up in coats, hats, scarves, gloves and boots for a journey to the Land of Ice & Snow

• bouncing a silver snowflake on a cloth and listening to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake

• singing Bangers & Smash original, It’s Snowing Outside

• listening to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite while Kitty strokes their faces with a feather boa

• meeting some animals that live in snowy places and singing their names – Reindeer, Arctic Fox, Snowy Owl, Penguin and Polar Bear

• taking it in turns to dress up and hide in an igloo while singing Bangers & Smash original, Jack Frost

Chinese New Year

Photo by Valentin Petkov on Unsplash

Children have enjoyed:

• singing a Chinese hello song, Ni Hao Ma, to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle

• passing a Chinese rattle drum around the circle

• singing Chinese New Year Is Here Again while playing bells and chime bars

• waving red and yellow scarves and parading round with a paper dragon while listening to Training The Horses by the Peking Brothers

Africa Project at Under the Willow

Meanwhile, at Under the Willow, we’ve begun our 11-week Africa Project with sessions on:

• Introduction to Africa

• Desert landscapes

• Animals of Africa

Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash

Children have enjoyed:

• finding Africa on a map and singing the Seven Continents song

• learning a new hello song from South Africa, Haya Ma

• looking at The Skin You Live In, a beautifully illustrated book celebrating skin colour

• dancing to Funga Alafia, a welcome song from Nigeria recorded by Iya and the Kuumba Kids

• looking at pictures of camel traders and listening to African Sanctus by David Fanshawe

• playing claves and chanting to a recording of tribespeople in the Kalahari desert

• singing traditional children’s song, Alice The Camel, and Helen McCookerybook’s Here’s A Great Big Lion

Short Breaks at Waterman’s Arts Centre

And finally, Kitty’s new multi-arts project for children in the early years with additional needs kicked off at Waterman’s Arts Centre on 10 January 2020.

Kitty with fellow presenter, Steve Grocott

In the first four sessions, Short Breaks children and their families have sung and danced to original Bangers & Smash songs and listened to stories about nature and wildlife especially written by Kitty.

They have also:

• made junk shakers

• played with a sensory garden

• made worms in slime

• created a bee in honeycomb collage

Playing with Aislinn’s sensory garden

Kitty is joined by fellow early years music specialist, musician and storyteller, Steve Grocott, and arts psychotherapy student and creative support leader, Aislinn Jeffers, both of whom are helping to create this exciting new education pilot as well as playing in the Short Breaks band!

Celebrating Christmas and My Body with Bangers & Smash!

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

Photo by Nati Melnychuk on Unsplash

Christmas shows

Preparations for Christmas began in November with Crystal Nurseries rehearsing Kitty’s version of the Nativity, Born In A Stable, and Mother Goose – Greendale practising their Christmas Show.

Come December, Crystal Nurseries parents and carers enjoyed performances in all three settings while Mother Goose – Greendale’s show took place at Christ Church in East Dulwich. Shows were jam-packed and it was wonderful to see the children and staff dressed up in their costumes, singing their hearts out.

My Body

Meanwhile, at Under the Willow, we brought our 12-week project, My Body, to a close with our final music sessions and My Body Project Celebration.

Our last two sessions were about:

• Growing and getting older

• The heart

Children enjoyed:

• growing up tall from a crouching position while making a rising ‘ooh’ sound

• singing Everything Grows by Raffi

• playing a steady pulse on claves while reciting Kitty’s rhyme, Here’s My Heart

• pretending to run while playing a fast pulse / pretending to sleep while playing a slow pulse

• taking it in turns to come into the middle and jump during the song, Jumping Bean

With songs and stories inspired by My First Book of the Human Body, which uses the Montessori method to help children develop an awareness of their own bodies, the My Body Project Celebration brought together songs and activities from previous sessions in a performance for parents and carers on 27 November 2019.

Christmas dress-up

We finished the term at Under The Willow with three sessions on Christmas during which children took it in turns to wear Santa and elf hats and to hold reindeer puppets while singing and dancing to:

• Here We Go Round The Christmas Tree

• Father Christmas

• Santa’s Little Helper

• Three Little Reindeer

• Jingle Bells

• When The Red, Red Robin

• Rockin’ Robin

• We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Carols in the Wildlife Garden

Kitty was delighted to host Mother Goose Wildlife Garden’s annual Carols in the Wildlife Garden event on 14 December 2019.

With carol singing and Christmas wreath-making, families and members of the local community enjoyed mulled drinks round the fire pit and homemade mince pies courtesy of wildlife gardener, Di Wallace.

Kitty will be back in the Wildlife Garden this April with a junk instrument-making and singing session. Please click here for more details!

New project at Waterman’s Arts Centre

Kitty’s final music session of 2019 brought a new and exciting chapter for Bangers & Smash with the launch of a multi-arts project at Waterman’s Arts Centre for children in the early years with special educational needs and disabilities.

Kitty launched the project at Waterman’s Short Breaks Christmas Party on 20 December 2019 with a drop-in music session for Short Breaks children and their families.

As well as singing Christmas songs and dressing up as elves, Santas and reindeer, participants were introduced to the project, which combines original songs with activities based on gardening, learning about wildlife and recycling.

The new project runs from 10 January to 27 March 2020 and Kitty is delighted to be working with fellow early years music specialist, musician and storyteller, Steve Grocott, arts psychotherapy student and creative support leader, Aislinn Jeffers, and art and craft workshop providers, Art Jar.

A very Happy New Year from Bangers & Smash!