After our first meeting with Fionnuala last week, we were all looking forward to our first “Virtual” meeting.

We all felt well prepared for today’s lesson.  The children had helped to gather materials to make musical instruments, in school and at home.  I had also spent some time testing the Elluminate software with Fionnuala.

The children really enjoyed seeing Fionnuala on the big screen.  Some children discussed how this was a little bit like Skype, which a lot of them have at home.  We discussed how they used it to speak to family and friends in other countries.

We all enjoyed having a look around Fionnuala’s music studio and seeing some of her musical instruments. The children were able to recall what they had learnt in last week’s lesson.

Last week, we had spent some time listening to sounds in the environment and this week we went on a short walk to record the sounds we could hear using an easispeak microphone.  We went inside and then outside.  Over break time, Fionnuala was able to listen to the sounds we had found.

Finally, the children made shakers, using the sounds they had found outside the classroom as inspiration for their decorations.

It was lovely to see the children take their instrument up to the whiteboard to show and describe it to Fionnuala using the webcam and microphone!