Kits News - 11th November 2022

This week we chose the topic book The Drum by Ken Wilson-Max to help begin to explore music and different instruments and to refine the children’s listening skills as they tune into different sounds in preparation for our Orchestral workshop!

On Tuesday we were all very excited to host the Orchestral Workshop in the church. Three professional musicians visited us and we learnt about the different instruments in the Woodwind, Brass and String families. We listened to the musicians play the oboe, flute, violin, trumpet, trombone and tuba and were very all amazed to be able to feel the sound vibrations on the rim of the tuba as the musician played a very loud sound with it! We watched a video of a conductor conducting a large orchestra and learnt how to be conductors ourselves, waving our arms up and down and left and right in time to the music. 

On Wednesday we made our own musical instruments using paper cups with different media inside. The children had the choice to spoon either salt or beans into their cups and then once taped together they personalised them with stickers and pens. We then shook the shakers and refined our listening skills as we compared their sounds and experimented with playing them loudly and quietly.  

Throughout the week the children have continued to love making pretend meals both the in the Mud Kitchen and with the playdough, and have taken a keen interest in our cookery books. With this in mind we engaged in a Cookery Focus Time this week where the children made their own pizzas.

They developed their hand strength as they used spoons to transfer passata onto the muffin base and then made independent choices as to which toppings they wanted to add. We talked about the different ingredients with the children and they loved tasting them, with the olives been unexpectedly very popular! They smelt delicious while cooking and the children were very proud to show them to their parents and carers at home time.