Mrs Rae played Year Two three very different pieces of music by the composer Gustav Holst. The selection of music was called the planets, with each piece of music named after a different planet in the solar system. 

The children thought of words to describe the music and the emotional reaction they had when they listened to each one, these included: 

strong, energetic, scatty, calm, loud, quiet, soft, beat, happy, powerful, bold, 

They then drew pictures of what they think of when listening to Jupiter, Mars and Venus. 

"This is Mars. He is the God of War and is very strong." 

"The music is loud and strong."

"It makes me wants to march around like a soldier to the beat of a drum." 

"I like Mars best because it is loud and powerful."

"Jupiter is joyful!" 

"Jupiter is scatty and happy and it makes me think of the colour yelllow." 

"I like Jupiter because it makes me want to move around and I think of playing outside with my friends." 

"Venus is calm, quiet and slower than the others." 

"I like Venus because it makes me feel happy and safe." 

Today Year Two used Chrome Music Lab to explore rhythm. The children learnt how to create a simple rhythm using one instrument. From this they added more instruments and investigated how to speed up and slow down their rhythm. They created patterns to determine what rhythm looks like as well as what it sounds like. Musicians in the making! 

Today the children brought all of their learning about how to create music using technology together. In pairs, they chose an animal to base their piece of music on. This enabled them to focus their decisions and experiment with the different instruments, rhythms, pitches and tempos. By listening carefully to their music, the children evaluated each addition and made changes as they went. 

Here are a few examples of their work: