Story soundtrack ( Room 6)

Earlier in the year, I met with Christine, the author of this book, who asked if we could record a sound track to go with it.

Room six has been working on this project over the last few weeks, and finally yesterday, we made a recording.

We started out experimenting with lots of sounds and ideas before choosing what we would use in the recording. We tried out lots of different instruments in the music room, and different voice sounds that we thought might be useful. This process took time, and was frustrating at times, but we got there in the end.

Boomwhackers are colourful plastic tubes that play certain notes. We used them to make up little melodies based on some questions we had about bees. 

We decided xylophones made a better sound, so for the recording we transferred the melodies to a couple of xylophones.

Here's what Christine and Marilyn, the authors of the book said about our work:

"Well done.  I am delighted.

 Please thank the children so much"

"How absolutely lovely.

Please do pass on my sincere congratulations to Room 6"

There's a very bad smell at Owairaka

Early in the morning we smelt a bad smell. 

Room 10 had some ideas about where it came from....

There’s a very bad smell at Owairaka,
I wonder who made it?

Maybe it’s a lorry. brrm brrm
Maybe the worm bin’s open. creak
Maybe it’s the chickens.  Buk buk
Maybe someone farted. A giant!
Maybe it’s some dog poo.  Oh no it’s on my shoe
Maybe it’s the compost.  Oooh!

There’s a very bad smell at Owairaka, what shall we do about it? 
Put a clothes peg on my nose!
(put a ‘peg’ on your nose and sing it again)

Click here to view a video of The Very Bad Smell Song

Jambus

In August we were lucky to host the Jambus recording studio for the fourth year in a row. Every year, they come and make professional recordings of our student groups. This year, we recorded tracks by the Marimba group, Choir and Kapa Haka group. SEPP ( Summer, Elijah, Paris and Pauline) recorded a song and Ayan recorded his original guitar piece that he played to win Owai's got talent. We are grateful for this opportunity and to the sponsors who make it possible. Here are a couple of tracks and some photos.  

Hot Cross Buns in three parts Room 25

This term, the music room is set up  a bit like an orchestra, with all the bass instruments together and the alto and soprano xylophones all lined up. Look at the concentration shown by these year 3' and 4's to start together, play their own part in time with the others, and stop together. Nice work Room 25!!

Bungalow

Since the beginning of the year, Room 10 has loved this singing game. Today, they persuaded me to include it in our lesson. It's a lot of fun, it encourages singing, moving, listening, turn-taking and goes by the unexpected name of 'Bungalow'. One of the things I liked about watching them play was that everyone came up with an original action, different from those that came before. Some of them were REALLY original- you'll just have to take my word for it, otherwise the video would have been way too long.

Year two classes are introduced to So-me

Recently I have happily rediscovered the So-me Stories by Stuart Manins. So-me has a special way of singing his name, which the Year 2 classes are learning about. We have been singing and playing So-me's name on xylophones and marimbas. The Contrabass Marimba and Contrabass Bars are great for the part in the story where So-me's Dad calls him using his low voice. Here are photos of Room 4 playing along with the story.

Click here to listen to the story video and sing along

ONZA Marimba Festival

Congratulations to our Marimba Group who played at the ONZA Marimba Festival last week.
Thanks too to everyone who helped with moving instruments from school to the stadium and back again. Watch out for Owai kids at around 8.06 on this video of the concert.

The Orchestra is coming

Next Tuesday afternoon we will be privileged to have an orchestra from the University of Auckland playing a concert for us. In preparation for this we have been learning about the families of instruments in the orchestra. Here are some shots of Room 23 recording what they already knew.

Here's the link to a video which gave us the opportunity to listen to many of the instruments so we can recognise them not only by sight but by sound. Information about the instruments starts at about 10.20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8XepozFRbQ

Bucket Squares

Over the past few weeks we have been using buckets in a number of different rhythm activities. In 'Bucket Squares' we set out the buckets in a square and make decisions about what happens at each bucket when someone walks around the square. We also plan what happens in between the buckets. In this way we are developing skills in beat, rhythm and improvisation, as well as thinking about musical form and timbre. Here are some photos of Room 19 working with bucket squares. It's great to see prior experience with drums, ukulele and tuned percussion instruments being used in this creative project.

Choir rehearsals have started for the Kids for Kids concert at Vodafone events centre on Wednesday 4 November. This choir is for students in years four, five and six. Rehearsals are on Tuesdays 12.20-1.10pm
Here's the link to download the lyrics