Early Years 10 minute takeaway - 5 little Birds

This is the first episode of a podcast for early years practitioners looking to develop their musical knowledge and teaching skills. The episode focuses on the importance of confidence in teaching music. The host encourages practitioners to reflect on a time they felt confident in their setting and to channel that confidence into their singing. The host then introduces a song called "Five Little Seagulls" and outlines a five-step process for teaching the song effectively. The steps include listening to the song, using call and response, singing the whole song together, adding actions, and finally, a final performance. The host provides tips for building confidence in singing and encourages practitioners to practice and enjoy themselves. The episode concludes with an invitation for feedback and suggestions for future episodes. Good morning or evening, whatever time you're listening to this. Welcome to our first CMA Early Years podcast. This podcast is for any early years practitioner that is looking to develop their musical knowledge or someone who just wants to spend 10 minutes learning how to teach from our resources. Today, we are going to be looking at the idea of confidence. No matter what anyone says, teachers are actors. You act every day modelling how you want your class to behave, using your voice expressively, animatedly using your facial expressions to explain the wonderful activities that you set up for your children. It really is only a small step in confidence from this to singing. So today, we're just going to do a quick little exercise before we start our song where you can really think about your confidence and how confident you are. I'd like you to now think of a time that you have felt most confident in your setting, whether that's a classroom, a room, wherever you are outside. I'd like you now to just have maybe close your eyes and have a think about what were you doing? Where were you stood? What were the children doing? And how did you feel in that moment? Now you've had a chance to reflect, I really want you to channel how you felt in that moment and that confidence and take that into your singing today. I know that singing is not the most natural thing to do, especially sometimes when you're in front of a whole room of adults who possibly aren't joining in. But if you just have confidence, you really can do anything. So today's takeaway is going to be a song called Five Little Seagulls. Before we learn the song, we're going to discuss how to teach this effectively. Now I'm going to be outlining the process to follow each time you teach a song to make you feel confident and for your children to be able to learn the song and maybe some of the actions as well. Our resources will always be set up in the following way to enable you to be as successful as possible. Okay, so we've got five steps here. Step one is going to be where you and your children listen to the song. Now that could be one of our resources and you're playing it from the board to the children or it could be you have learnt the song and you are singing it to them. Step two, sing to the children using call and response. So that will be I sing a line, then you sing a line back to me. Again, if your confidence isn't quite there, you can use the resources to help you. Step three, sing the whole song through together. Step four, add the actions and that really will help to solidify the song. Step five, final performance. Now that is where you get to sit back and watch them learn from your amazingness and feel really proud of yourself. So let's start with our song. So it is called Five Little Seagulls. So first of all, if we're following step one, we're going to sing the whole song through. I am at this point not going to sing the whole song through. I'm just going to sing the verse and the chorus. It's five seagulls and we count down from five to one. Obviously, I'm not going to waste your time today in singing all of it. So when I demonstrate, it will just be one verse and one chorus. But obviously, the song is about helping them to count down. Okay, so here's the song. Five little seagulls flying low. I said, sorry, boys, I must go. So off she flew up in the sky, leaving four to fly on by. Clap, clap, clap. One, two, three, flap your wings and pat your knees. Clap, clap, clap. One, two, three, flap your wings and pat your knees. Right, so that is the whole song through. Everyone has now heard it. You go on to step two, which is using call and response. You can either use the resource or you can be really brave and sing it yourself. So I'm going to sing a line and then you're going, I'm going to leave a space for you to sing the line back to me. Okay. Five little seagulls flying low. I said, sorry, boys, I must go. So off she flew up in the sky, leaving four to fly on by. Clap, clap, clap. One, two, three, flap your wings and pat your knees. Clap, clap, clap. One, two, three, flap your wings and pat your knees. Okay, so hopefully that's the end of step two. We've done call and response. I've sung a line, you've sung it back to me. Now, let us try and sing the song all the way through together. So you sing it along with me this time. Here we go. Five little seagulls flying low. I said, sorry, boys, I must go. So off she flew up in the sky, leaving four to fly on by. Clap, clap, clap. One, two, three, flap your wings and pat your knees. Clap, clap, clap. One, two, three, flap your wings and pat your knees. Well done. I'm sure that you did that amazingly. So we've done steps one, two and three. We now move on to four, which is adding the actions to the song. So this one, as you can hear in the chorus, has a ready-made actions. Clap, clap, clap. One, two, three, with your fingers. Flap your wings. So everyone should be flapping their wings and patting their knees. That is basic standard. Now, you would then sing the chorus and demonstrate those movements that are to be done in that chorus. Now, if you think that your children could manage a bit more, the actions could also go into the verse, and they can hold up their five fingers. Five little seagulls flying low, you hold up your five fingers. I said, sorry, boys, I must go, pointing to go. So off she flew, you're flapping those wings again, and then you're leaving four, so you hold up four fingers to fly on by. So you could do all of that, or you could just do the chorus. It's up to you and how you think your children are going to fare with that, and also how you will, okay? So we will now on to step five, which is the final performance. So at this point, everybody should be joining in with the songs and the actions. You would be really enthusiastically singing and performing at the front of the actions, and the kids would all be joining in with you. Hopefully, at this moment, you're really proud of how far they've come and how well you have taught the song, okay? So let's just think about how you might use this, okay? You could use this song if you're discussing wildlife or you're discussing birds. You could have five people stood at the front, and they are going to become the birds, and instead of the sections with the fingers, you've got one little seagull, and each of your five are a seagull, and then when one flies away, they fly away, and you could do it like that. This song will support the use of counting down. It will also support them getting into the correct pitch and thinking about if a song is high or if a song is low. But the most important points to remember are that they are singing a song, you are helping to do this, and that everyone is enjoying it, okay? So here's some top tips. Be confident. If we go back to what we said at the beginning, confidence is key. Fake it till you make it. They want to see you enjoying it, so they can also enjoy it. If you look like this is, you know, a wet weekend, they're also going to feel that vibe off you, so you've got to really go for it, okay? So with that, be loud and really sing. They don't mind if your voice isn't the best, mine isn't the best, but you've just got to go for it. If you're going to do the actions, you've got to get into them. Really try and be as large as you can and really demonstrate it well. Once confident, you may decide to just drop the resources all together, and you've learnt the song from the resources, and you can do it all yourself. And I really think that if you keep listening to these podcasts and following along, you will be really confident. So make sure you're enjoying yourselves, and please do let us know how you get on with the resources. We are always open to feedback or any songs that you would like to hear. I'm always happy to lend an ear or talk through an idea, so please do get in touch. Have a good day.