Lucy Sparkles - Extra Curricular lessons


    Lucy Sparkles New Video ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes’ Helps Develop Inner Hearing

    This month on YouTube, Lucy Sparkles sings the well known children’s action song, ‘Head,

    Shoulders, Knees and Toes’.

    This version offers an excellent opportunity for musical learning as Lucy introduces the ‘thinking

    voice’ which helps children to develop inner hearing.

    Inner Hearing

    Have you ever had a song ‘stuck in your head’? This is inner hearing. Inner hearing is the ability

    to hear music inside your head without any acoustic input. At Lucy Sparkles & Friends we call it

    our ‘thinking voice’. If we develop children’s inner hearing from a young age, then it will be so

    engrained in them that by adulthood musical skills like sight reading and sight singing will be easily

    mastered. Students with a developed inner ear will be able to pitch any note or interval as they

    will be able to hear inside their head how it should sound.

    You can help your children to develop their inner hearing in a number of ways.

    1. Teach music through singing. The use of the voice automatically accesses inner hearing

    skills, so through the development of singing, inner hearing is also being developed.

    2. Help children to develop their musical memory through using puppets or pictures to

    introduce songs and by performing actions that indicate lyrics.

    3. Hum or play on an instrument the melody of part of a familiar song and ask your children

    to identify it. They must search their musical memories for the song that fits.

    4. Experiment with ‘hiding’ songs. This is where children begin singing out loud and, on a

    signal, they continue singing silently with their ‘thinking voices’ (and then may be signalled

    to sing out loud again).

    Our version of ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ is a good example of a ‘hiding’ song. In the

    video, Lucy asks your children to use their ‘thinking voices’ for certain words (E.g. ‘head’). They

    must have a good sense of pulse and maintain the tempo to be able to keep in time whilst using

    their ‘thinking voices’. Joining in with the well known actions will help your children to keep in time.

    Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Aims

    ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ also develops several learning areas from the EYFS national

    guidelines. They include:

    Expressive Arts and Design (Exploring and using media and materials)

    To move to a regular beat

    Physical Development (Moving and handling)

    To develop coordination and control through actions and to explore moving the body in a

    variety of ways

    Literacy (Reading) & Mathematics (Shape, space and measure)

    To pre-empt the lyrics which follow a repetitive structure/pattern

    Communication and Language (Understanding)

    To understand the meaning of words through actions

    We hope you enjoy this month’s video! If you have any suggestions for future videos, please

    don’t hesitate to get in touch.

    Lots of sparkles,

    Lucy Sparkles & Friends

    http://www.lucysparkles.com/

    Share this page:
    The Early Years Foundation Stage: a guide for parents and carers
    How to choose the best nursery and pre-school for your child

    Translate

    News