Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Teaching News

Teaching News

Brilliant Bloggers of the Week: Mr A, Mr C and Mr D

Posted: 04 Feb 2013 10:00 AM PST

Our Brilliant Blogger series continues with a blog by three teachers who share some wonderful musical resources. Get your classes singing!

Mr A, Mr C and Mr D use their blog (Mr A, Mr C and Mr D Present…) to share a free song with teachers every Tuesday. They produce songs which they feel will really help support the curriculum in areas where you wouldn’t normally find a song, particularly in Literacy, Maths and Science. They aim to keep the songs modern and interesting, rather than patronising children with some of the the music that is sometimes exposed to them. For example, there is a song about Onomatapoeia which sounds like The Strokes, and a 3D Shapes song that sounds like Bloc Party. The songs cover all types of genres and styles, hoping that children will want to put the songs on their own MP3 players to sing along to!

Click play below to listen to the Onomatopoeia song. Lyrics are available here.

Mr C and Mr D currently teach at the same Junior School in Nottingham and they can often be found jamming on xylophones, pianos, guitars and whatever else they see lying around school! Mr A works in a Year 2 class in Newcastle.

Mr A, Mr C and Mr D Present...

They started their blog because they felt that there was a definite need for KS2 music to be modernised. Mr D says:

‘There is some great stuff out there but much of it is History, Geography or PSHE based. In our choir at school anything goes: The Beatles, Arcade Fire, Flaming Lips, Coldplay, Take That, Katie Perry. The idea being that we expose children to a range of music and a range of moral voices and messages. This never seems to transpire to the more ‘boring’ aspects of teaching: grammar, punctuation, electricity circuits, teeth, light and shadows, hyperbole, similes etc. I felt we needed songs to engage children in these, sometimes, very dry areas of the curriculum and besides, it’s what we teach most of all!’

The blog has had over 30,000 hits since they started in May 2012 and they have had hits from all over the globe. Their Fractions and Synonyms songs have seen thousands of downloads and they are now in the process of building an app too.

Visit the blog here and don’t forget to vote in the poll to decide what song is created next!