At the start of June, the nine Prep classes from both the Werribee and Melton campuses participated in a very special Music incursion where they learned some traditional folk dances, did creative movement activities, sang and played instruments. The Incursion was run by Audrey Klein, who was a founding member of the multicultural folk dance band The Shenanigans. Audrey is also a highly experienced music teacher who specialises in teaching primary music, so the students were engaged and attentive throughout their whole double-period incursion.
The session started with the Preps learning the “Bear Dance”, where they all had the chance to be the leader and make up actions or dance moves in small groups. They had to listen carefully to the music patterns to know what they should be doing. Audrey played the piano accordion for this dance.
“The Shoemaker’s Dance” was the second piece that they explored. There were three distinct sections in this piece and the students worked with a partner for the dance. For the first section, they pretended to sew shoes like they used to 100 years ago, in the second section, they pretended to hammer tacks into the shoes and in the final section, they celebrated finishing making the pair of shoes by dancing with their partner. The special thing about “The Shoemaker’s Dance”, is that the students also got to play the musical instruments that matched the music. They played the tambourine and finger cymbals for the sewing section, the tone blocks and claves for the hammering and tambourines and maracas for the dancing sections. The students enjoyed this part of the session very much.
The final song that the students learned was a beautiful song and dance from Hawaii about a little seashell. Audrey accompanied the students with the ukulele. as they were singing and dancing. The students also had the opportunity to draw their seashell or a sea-themed picture.
The students all enjoyed this incursion very much, and I hope that it helped them to develop and nurture a love and appreciation for music. Students from Prep A (Werribee) told us what they thought!
What was your favourite part of the session with Audrey?
"Watching Audrey and Mrs Baker playing together." (Dominic)
"Drawing fish after listening to the song about shells." (Mei)
"Charlie and I doing the dance." (Alyssia)
"Doing the shoemaker dance." (Sofia)
"Learning about the shell song in a different language." (Piper)
What did you learn?
"Some languages may sound funny to us, but we do not laugh at them." (Charlie)
"What the chorus meant." (Eva)
"The verse that we sang." (Zunuo)
"You can do different dance movement to the song." (Elyana)
Which instrument/s did you enjoy listening to?
"Triangle." Oliver
"Woodblock." Eva
"Violin." Reyansh
"Claves." Elyana