Explore the Mechanics of Nature

A KS2 unit of work built around The land of cogs and wheels from the Song Bank.

Breadth of curriculum has once again been advocated in the news lately, and more and more schools are adopting a 'relative' approach to the delivery of the National Curriculum.

This presents teachers with a real opportunity to set singing in its rightful place at the heart of school life, by using song as a springboard for cross-curricular project work. When choosing a song, it is helpful to consider the four S's:

• Scope: what are the cross-curricular opportunities, and how can the song support the theme?
• Suitability: is the difficulty level appropriate?
• Substance: does it have enough 'meat' to last the duration of the topic?
• Stimulation: is it inspiring or fun to sing in its own right?

PREPARATION IS KEY

Remember that a song is not a magic wand. It will promote but not guarantee motivation and purpose, and children will respond best when a song has been adequately prepared. So remember these preparation tips:

• Do your homework: make sure you thoroughly familiarise yourself with the song. Listen to it many times and sing it through to yourself so that you will be entirely confident when teaching it.
• Plan: how you intend to teach it, and exactly how it will facilitate your theme - it should feature in medium-term plans.
• Warm up: ensure the mind, body and voice are ready to sing, by using fun warm-up games and exercises. There are many available in the Song Bank.
• Break it down: separate the song into short sections to be taught discretely, so it maintains impetus over time. A song that is become tiresome will lead to lacklustre performances.

Below you'll find examples of how the Song Bank song, The land of cogs and wheels, (taken from Pam Wedgwood's mini-musical, The Weekend Whizz),

might be used as a stimulus for topic-based work in KS2.

SCIENCE & MATHS

There is much scope for investigating the theme of the song - forces. If you happen to be studying any of the QCA units on forces (such as 4E: Friction, or 6E: Forces in Action),

the cross-curricular links are built in, by virtue of the lyrics. It would be great fun for children to design their own experiments or activities to show the effects of forces on an object.

For example, to show the effects of gravity versus buoyancy, ask children to make aluminium foil boats and add 5p coins until they sink; the boat that holds most coins is the winner. Or they could test different parachutes to demonstrate the effects of air resistance - size, shape and design will alter the speed at which the parachutes fall from a given height to the ground. Build in mathematical investigation, such as: how long would their parachute take to fall 50 metres? How far would it drop in 30 seconds, five minutes?

HISTORY

Use the lyrics of the song to develop research opportunities:

• The water wheel: This was used in Greece and Rome, several centuries ago (and possibly much earlier, in ancient Mesopotamia). It was used for irrigation, milling and mining.
• The parachute: One of the earliest parachute designs was a sketch by Leonardo da Vinci around the end of the 15th century. Thought to be too heavy with its wooden frame, it remained untried until the year 2000 when it was tested successfully, being dropped from a hot air balloon at 3000 metres, and gliding smoothly to the ground.

ENGLISH

This is a good opportunity to explore non-fiction writing:

• Information text: having done some historical research, children could produce a fact file on the water wheel, or the da Vinci parachute.
• Instruction and explanation texts: following on from their science experiments, children could write a set on instructions for their parachute experiment, ensuring use of time connectives and imperative verbs. After showing their results, they could conclude their writing by explaining why larger parachutes fall more slowly than smaller ones, writing in the present tense, and using scientific terms such as 'force' and 'air resistance'.

MUSIC & DESIGN TECHNOLOGY

Using the written percussion parts as a stimulus, compose mechanical ostinati to perform in the instrumental introduction and interludes. This could be done with classroom percussion, but for a more original effect, use found sound sources, which create a mechanical timbre. This could be linked to the QCA Design Technology unit 5A: Musical Instruments, with children designing and making their own sound sources.

PE/DANCE

Create a sequence of movements based on the theme of forces. Children could start by reading through the lyrics and identifying where forces are at work. They could then investigate how each action might be presented through movement. Because the song is so well constructed, there is great scope for creativity and contrast here. For example, the first chorus and verse concern the forces that act on a water wheel, though from different perspectives - the chorus being musically and lyrically mechanical, and the following verse more fluid and elegant. Can the children reflect these ideas in their work?

DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY & ICT

Watch the famous advert for the Honda Accord ('The Cog', 2003),

which can be viewed at www.honda.co.uk. (This is the one where a small car part - a cog - rolls down a slope, nudges another, and so on, until a whole sequence of linked events has occurred, resulting in the car rolling off a ramp and being 'unveiled'.)

Investigate how different forces could be harnessed to create the children's own chain-reaction events. Equipment could include more obvious items, such as dominoes, but children will delight in the prospect of using ideas from the song: wheels, parachutes and slides.

This could be done as a one-off activity or extended into a longer project, with children being 'commissioned' in groups to produce their own advert. This might include planning, designing, testing and then constructing and demonstrating their projects. They could then film their adverts and edit their video material using free software, such as Windows Moviemaker or Pinnacle's Video Spin, www.videospin.com.

ART & DESIGN

Look at the work of W. Heath Robinson, whose humorous cartoons of unlikely and gratuitously intricate machines are actually based largely on laws of physics.

Can the children design their own amusing drawings of machines that use excessively complex means of performing relatively simple functions?

Words: Andy Brooke

Andy Brooke is a teacher, songwriter and freelance writer on music education. He has taught music in all age ranges from nursery to sixth form. He now combines the role of primary school music co-ordinator with that of SENCo.