Welcome to Creative Classrooms Connect, a space for Key Stage 2 teachers to access, share and respond to music-making resources created by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, primary teachers and other experts in music education. We'll be regularly uploading ideas for classroom music activities, with which we invite teachers to interact.
In this article you will find all you need to prepare your children for, or work with them in response to the LPO's Key Stage 2 BrightSparks concert on Tuesday 7 May 2019. For teachers who aren't attending the concert, you can still use the PDF Teachers' Pack to deliver creative composition projects in class, based on Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and 'Dawn' from Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes.
Roaring traffic, car horns, the footsteps of a traveller... George Gershwin's An American in Paris paints a vivid picture of a bustling city 90 years ago. But what might it sound like today as imagined by a Key Stage 2 class?
This resource, by composer and music educator Rachel Leach, is designed to help you and your class use George Gershwin's An American in Paris in the classroom, using themes and rhythms from the piece to create your own version of A Brit in Birmingham, Year 4 in London or perhaps even Gershwin Class in Tokyo!
Getting children familiar with rhythmic notation is an excellent starting block for any further musical learning, and can be a lot of fun!
In this project, former LPO Young Composer Ailie Robertson has created a body percussion and verbalisation template for teaching rhythmic notation, along with some flashcards and games for children to become really familiar with the rhythmic notations and their meaning.
In these two creative projects by music educator Ros Savournin, we explore Béla Bartók's dazzling Concerto for Orchestra, finding out about folk-style melodies a fixed interval apart, and the pentatonic scale.
Project 1 looks at the second movement of the piece and its opening that showcases pairs of bassoons and oboes in a lighthearted "game of pairs". This project is designed to be delivered over 4-6 lessons (depending on length) and is suitable for a half-term unit of work with a Key Stage 2 class.
Project 2 focuses on the opening of the fourth movement and its hypnotic pentatonic oboe melody and how to recreate this in class. This can be adapted to fit just 1 session, or can be extended to fit 3-4, depending on how much time you have.