ARCHIVED 2022-24 Year 4 Blog

 Continuing our work on Earth through the BBC 10 Pieces, Year 4 have taken an element of something linked to Earth - we’ve had oceans, forests, life cycles, waterfalls and meadows to name a few. Children, then worked in groups to start planning how to interpret these elements through music. Thinking of sounds they might want to use, soft, loud, pitch, beats and other aspects of music. Some super ideas and were looking forward to putting actual music to this next week! 

 Today in Music, Year 4 were looking at creating some shimmering sounds using xylophones and the notes GABCD as they are ‘next door notes’. There was some lovely compositions. Next week we will begin to put these together to creating some depth to the music. 

 Over the next few weeks, Year 4 will be following a series of lessons from the BBC Ten Piece units. Their focus is the incredible Hans Zimmer (a German composer who has written music scores for over 150 movies and has been nominated for 10 Oscars). He has composed a piece called Earth especially for this unit of work. Children listened to an introduction about the piece, a bit from Hans Zimmer himself, and the musical performance of the piece.  While listening children had to illustrate what they thought the music was describing in a circle that represents Earth. There were some amazing interpretations! 

 Year 4 have begun their new unit in music based around Rhythm. We talked about what the beat is of a piece of music, and where we can usually find it on written music.  We listened to some music and picked out the beat - using our heads, feet and hands. We had a go at marching to a beat, sitting and standing on the count of 1 and other fun ways of internalising the beat in our heads (so we don’t count out loud). At the end of the session we sang and clapped the beat to One Two Three Four Five. It was a fun, interactive lesson which everyone

 This afternoon Year 4 had a chance to show off their singing voices! It’s that time of year when we begin to think about celebrating a certain time of year (we’re not allowed to say the word until after half term!) There were some very brave children who chose to sing alone and some in pairs or small groups. Both classes sang collectively - all showing a talent and enjoyment of singing. A lovely afternoon - well done Year 4.

 In music today we looked closely at what a hot air balloon is, how it takes off and what it is made from. We learnt the chorus (refrain) of a song called ‘Hot air balloon’ and then watched a video of one being filled with the hot air and taking off the ground. The children were fascinated by the site, and had many questions!  Following this we began to explore what a soundscape is and had a go, as a class, to draw the sound scape of the video - there was a lot of discussion and some great ideas of what this would look like. We introduced the terms forte (loud) and piano (quiet) to different parts of the soundscape. Each group was then given a different percussion instrument. They explored the instrument to see how many different ways they could play it and how many different sounds they could make from the instrument. This was explained as timbre (the different sounds made by an instrument). Each group had a chance to share with the rest of the group what they’d discovered....

 To start off our music journey we have spent some time looking at musical vocabulary and terms that we will come across. As some of these words will usually mean something different to the children we explored each word and it’s musical meaning. We even watched a few little videos to help us understand. The children then wrote keywords or drew pictures to help them remember. Some great work Year 4, well done.