I had a great time recently working for Children's Classic Concerts at their Percussion Station as part of the Big Music for Minis weekend here in Glasgow. We had a 'Percussion Free-for-all' where the children could try all the different percussion instruments - many for the first time - from djembes to gathering drums and much, much more! 

We then had 'Playing Together' sessions where we did call & response, starts & stops, created massive rain storms, and generally made as much noise as possible! 

Here we are doing 'Creepy, creepy spider' with actions and drums.

This weekend I was part of Rastamouse's Rocksteady Reggae School in Bangor, Northern Ireland! 

We had a great weekend teaching reggae to thousands of under 6s and their families. Throughout the day we ran three different 20 minute workshops using bongos, ukuleles, shakers, wooden spoons and more. 

Rhythm was a big feature of each and we used the different characters names for this: 

• Zoo-mer
  
• Ra-sta-mouse
  
• Bagg-a-T
  
• Scrat-chy, scrat-chy
  

All of the children were really excited about Rastamouse and it was great to get them groovin' and singing to the music. We started each session with a choreographed dance to the theme tune (below) and this really got the children involved and engaged. Find out more at www.rastamouse.com 

This activity is based on the Rain Game but we decided instead to use it to create a thunderstorm! We used this game to explain the story of Benjamin Franklin and how he discovered electricity flying his kite with a key attached into a thunderstorm. 


With the children in a semi-circle I demonstrated each action and got them to do it back to me. I then told them that during the game as I walked past them doing an action they should start doing it too and keep doing it until I came past them again with a different action. 

The actions are:

1. Rub hands together
2. Click fingers
3. Pat thighs
4. Stamp feet

As you progress through the actions the volume builds creating the thunderstorm. In our performance we included a variety of percussion instruments to add extra timbres and, of course, noise! We asked the children to divide the percussion instruments into the four actions groups based on the noises they made. As a finale to our performance we included thunder claps and then the leader (with a kite and a key on their back) gets electrocuted and this passes through the children (down the string of the kite) like a Mexican wave. The children enjoyed this bit the best!