Wish - Song

Mary Jones (dynamics, tempo, pitch, structure, texture)

I especially like the way in which the poem shows that children that old people were once young and vigorous, and have a wealth of experiences to share! First of all, teach the children the poem. We may be talking about someone the age of the children's great gran, since Mary is supposed to be really old! This is another chance, after doing a similar activity in the Animals unit, to make music up that reflects moods and movements. The spiral nature of the music curriculum suggests that it's good practice to build on previous musical experiences to enhance creativity, improve skills and further understanding.

• Mary Jones is old now - group 1 (untuned percussion)
• She's sleeping in her chair
• __
• But when she was a young girl - group 2 (untuned percussion)
• She rushed round everywhere
• __
• Mary was a dancer - group 3 (untuned percussion)
• The star of every show
• __
• She climbed the highest mountains - group 4 (tuned percussion going low to high pitch)
• __
• Went skiing in the snow - group 5 (tuned percussion going high to low in pitch)
• __
• Mary Jones is old now - group 6 (untuned percussion)
• She's wiser than you know
• __
• ©Music-Playtime: Arts Enterprise Limited

Divide the class into six small groups then allocate each group a line (or two) of the poem, as shown. Each group has supervised music corner time to choose from a selection of instruments to represent their part of the poem to create the right mood.

Some instruments could be played on their own (thin texture) and some played at the same time (thicker texture).

Do a class performance of the poem, saying each line (or two) then playing the instruments that represent it. Record the performance and let the children appraise using Two Stars and a Wish (what were two good things and what could be improved?). Finally, have another go, incorporating the improvements.