Bomcombra P.S. | Teacher Journal

The musical artist Fionnuala has showed us alot of things over the past few weeks. Yesterday we did a very long session with her on the Elluminate Live! from 9:45 to 2:00 it was great fun!

I liked it when we went outside, we went into the circle time hut and we all sat in a circle. We used the iPad and did some different recordings using our listening skills 1st of all. We just listened to the sounds near us then we listened to sounds in a 12 ft radius and made the sounds we heard.

Then we made the sounds we heard when we went to the P1 end of the school.

I cant wait to hear the Silver Kites preform.

We listened to a song Fionnuala made on her computer and made a score of it, but only in our own words. My group did alot the whole page was full.

Then we practiced our score for the class to perform, it was quite tricky because there were alot of people in our group.

Later on we took a video of us performing  to send to Fionnuala. Then we took a picture of the score on the iPad to send to Fionnuala.

Our score was finally finished and it is done and dusted.

Fionnuala said to my group that her group ‘Silver Kites ‘ are going to record our score, I was so looking forward to that!!!!!

We took a whole day meeting with Fionnuala for recording sounds around us.

We went into a quiet place outside, called the circle time hut there were lots of sounds around us, like cars, trees blowing in the wind, leaves rustling and wind blowind against our hair.

We then went down to the infant end where there was alot more noise. When we recorded their sounds we actaully sounded like them! It was funny.

by Jodie

This week we went outside to the circle-time shed to record sounds around us.

Mrs Flack brought an iPad outside to do the recording.

We recorded everyone being silent and listening and the next recording was copying what we heard.

We were listening for the sounds of our own bodies and when we were recording OUR sounds that we made the room was full of people mimicking our heart beat.

The next recording was listening to a sound 12 feet away and then we recorded ourselves copying those sounds.

Then we recorded the traffic.

We went into the infants corridor next and listened to the sounds we heard. We made about 4 or 5 recordings there – rather noisy ones!

by Jack

We meet up again with Finnouala, we connected with her for the whole day.

She gave us instuctions to get one iPad and listen to our body, we also had to listen to the noises around us. To do this we had to go outside.

We had to find a place to sit down so we went into the circle time hut and in there we listen to our bodies and the noises around us.

After that we listened to our bodies and made the  sound that we could hear aloud and we did the same with the noises around us. We recorded this on the iPad.

Then one of our class members came up with an idea to go down to the P1 area to listen to the noises that they were making and I can tell you they were very loud!

Altogether this activity was great fun.

On Thursday 28th February, we linked up with Fionnuala and we talked about music and what sounds we could make with our body.

We listened to sounds around us too. Then we went into the circle time hut and in there, we listened to sounds coming from our body and somewhere around us.

When we finished listening, we made the sounds that we heard.

When we finished making sounds and listening in the circle time hut, we went to the P1’s and P2’s area to listen to them and copy sounds that they made.

It was great fun!

Yesterday we were working with Finnoula at hearing different sounds inside and outside.

First we talked to Finnoula and closed our eyes to hear our body and around us.

After we went outside to the circle hut, we brought our coats because it was so cold. We did some exercises to warm up. Mrs Flack told us to close our eyes and listen carefully,  then we opened our eyes.

She told us to close our eyes again and when we hear something we make the sound. She told us when she was going to record us.  We did that a few times and we listened to our body sounds as well.

Later before we had lunch we went to the P1 area to see what noises they made so we could do the same when they went to eat. After they went to eat we made the sounds that they made while washing their hands, going to the hall and when they were in the hall eating. They were really noisy so we made a lot of noise as well.

After we recorded the bell went just in time we had lots of fun recording our sounds.

Yesterday we did not have any work because we were working with Finnoula. We worked on different sounds before break-time. We closed our eyes and had to try to hear sounds from our bodies and I heard my heartbeat and my breathing.

After break-time we went outside to listen to more sounds and record them. We went into the Circle-Time Hut and heard the cars, trucks and lorries and listened to our body and the birds and recorded it all .

Then the time was 11:45 and we moved into the resource area and listened to the P1s and we had to make the noises the P1s made. We recorded that as well. It was lots of fun.

By: Tara

Our P6 class are taking part in this project for the first time so everything is new to us!

On our first day Fionnuala travelled from Dublin to meet us in our classroom. We had a very enjoyable and productive day learning about how to make music by using our body. We learnt about loud and soft sounds, coming in on different beats and we produced our own song as Fionnuala conducted.

Our first virtual session through Elluminate involved Fionnuala teaching the children how to use the tools on the whiteboard. She warmed them up by getting them to say hello to each part of their body, then she discussed the previous week with them and asked them to identify themselves in the photos she put up on the board.

After looking at the photos the children revised the sound their group had made the previous week and they all performed again with Andrew conducting this time. It was just as good as the previous week!

Fionnuala showed them how to write a musical score to represent their song. They really enjoyed this and were very impressed that their song could be written as a score.

During the second virtual session we listened to a piece of music that Fionnuala had created. The children then described what they had heard in the music and the pictures it formed in their head. They each drew a picture to represent the music and wrote a few lines on the back about their picture.

The following week everyone worked in groups putting their pictures together to create a story. A lot of time was spent discussing the order and how the story would go but everyone was very involved and really enjoyed it. They then told their story as a group for their peers and Fionnuala.

IPads were used in the next two sessions. Each child photographed all of their group’s pictures and put them in order using Keynote. On each slide they also wrote a sentence about that picture, building the story up as a slide show.

When they had finished they show they added a vocal recording of the story using Garage Band. Each child had to cup their hands and speak into the iPad microphone as they were all trying to record within close proximity of each other.

During our fifth session we looked at how other schools were recording their activities on the Class Journal page. Fionnuala showed us her blog entry and they discussed, with her, what they could write for their own blogs. Time was then taken to write out their blog entry and several of them read them out to Fionnuala before everyone typed them up on the website.

So far everyone has really enjoyed the sessions and learnt a lot about music and how it can affects our thoughts and feelings. We all look forward learning more and working with Fionnuala again after Christmas.

After meeting Vanya in person, we all looked forward to the first ‘virtual’ contact.  Technology ran smoothly and the children responded easily to the interaction, enjoying coming to the webcam to talk to Vanya.

The topic of ‘movement’ was opened up with illustrations and discussion flowed naturally between children, artist and teacher.

The children enjoyed creating their own thaumatrope, with a wide range of movements explored.  We videoed the end product and took still photographs.

Everyone enjoyed the first meeting and we are looking forward to day 2 🙂

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