It’s incredible how much can be learnt from a game. Year 1 have been playing the music game “I Can Find the Cupboard Key”, and the amount of musical skills which are involved in playing it is incredible!

Based on “hot or cold”, the seeker must find the cupboard key while being directed by the rest of the class as they sing the mantra “I can find the cupboard key”. They sing quieter when the seeker is far away and sing louder when the seeker gets closer. This means that they have to use dynamic singing to guide the seeker, while working as a team to do so. But it gets even more impressive! Year 1 learnt that the notes they were singing could be sung as “Do-Re-Mi-Re-Do-Re-Mi”, as well as other variations of the melody. So then we played the game without the lyrics and used the Do-Re-Mi instead. This teaches them that notes don’t have to belong to words, and can have their own sounds to help us learn them.

Being a brilliantly musical class, we have been working on playing what we sing on instruments – a very important musical skill. So we took it to the xylophones, and now year 1 can play the Cupboard Key Game using xylophones instead of their voices. This really is a tricky thing to do, and they absolutely nailed it. Well done Year 1!