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EYFS and KS1 activities to accompany The Musical Story of the Gingerbread Man film

Step 1:

Watch The Musical Story of the Gingerbread Man on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iPlayer

Step 2:

Browse the activities below to find those that suit your class or your setting

Credits:

These activities have been devised and written by Early Years music education specialists Zoe Greenhalgh, Vic Holmes and Sally-Anne Brown of Note Weavers CIC, to support delivery of the EYFS and KS1 curricula.

Activity 1: Running like the Gingerbread Man

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool – Reception/Year 1
TIME REQUIRED: 20-30 minutes
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • Unconscious development of a sense of steady beat in the upper body, then the feet (a more advanced skill)
  • Dynamics, tempo
  • Form and structure of music and songs
  • Listening and appraising, timbre

Activity 2: Animal sounds and movements

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool – Reception
TIME REQUIRED: 20-30 minutes
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • Vocal play to develop voice control and experience of pitch contours
  • Movement relating to a song/ steady beat/ rhyme
  • Musical form and structure

Activity 3: Sounds of wind

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool - Reception
TIME REQUIRED: 15-20 mins
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • Developing singing and pitch matching, higher and lower pitch
  • Developing a sense of steady beat through movement
  • Form and structure of music and songs
  • Listening and appraising, timbre

Activity 4: Making Gingerbread

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool – Year 1
TIME REQUIRED: 20-40 minutes
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • developing confidence with singing,
  • learning to sing at pitch, pitch matching
  • developing a sense of steady beat
  • more advanced - improvising words to fit the tune

Activity 5: Sounds of rain

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool – Year 1
TIME REQUIRED: 30-40 minutes
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • developing singing and pitch matching, higher & lower pitch
  • developing a sense of steady beat through movement including experience of silent beat (rest)
  • developing rhythmic understanding - relationship between rhythm and steady beat
  • form and structure of music and songs
  • listening and appraising, timbre

Activity 6: Fox and the Gingerbread Man game

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool – Year 1
TIME REQUIRED: 5 minutes to explain 'rules' and practise the rhyme, then as long as you want to play!
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • Listening and watching
  • Vocal play with physical actions
  • Pitch: higher and lower
  • Stop/start
  • Conducting/timing

Activity 7: Sequencing and creating a soundscape

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool - Yr 1
TIME REQUIRED: 30 - 45 minutes
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • Improvisation
  • Composition
  • Form and structure; musical concepts e.g. tempo, rhythm etc
  • Early notation (symbolisation)

Activity 8: Outdoors: listening to different surfaces

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool – Yr 1
TIME REQUIRED: 15 minutes upwards - this activity could be used for a focussed playtime
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • Listening skills
  • Identifying different sounds
  • Describing sound

Activity 9: Musical opposites

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool – Year 1
TIME REQUIRED: 30/45 minutes
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • Recognising musical opposites
  • Building up a musical language
  • Using instruments/voice expressively
  • Improvising
  • Listening and appraising

Activity 10: The instruments and junk modelling

SUMMARY:

AGE: Preschool – Year 1
TIME REQUIRED: 30 minutes +
MUSICAL LEARNING:

  • Recognition
  • Creativity
  • Composition and performance
  • Designing and writing a musical 'score'
  • Performing in a group