Magazine Article - Sing Up - Let's get the whole place singing!

A KS1 Unit of work focusing on SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning)

A 6-week activity plan by Sue Nicholls

Many KS1 teachers structure their medium-term planning around topics, delivering different subjects in a connected and holistic way to engage and enthuse young learners. A song can be a real focal point for introducing or developing a theme; I’ve got a grumpy face is a perfect example of a song that can lead children through many learning pathways.

This simple song describes different faces, involving notions of self-awareness, moods and feelings. For those who use SEAL (self-awareness, managing feelings, motivation, empathy and social skills) to underpin their teaching, this song provides a wealth of starting points.

INTRODUCE THE SONG

Ask the children to make faces that are happy, sad, excited, bored, scared and crazy! Repeat with only half the class making faces, asking the ‘audience’ group which ones were convincing and why. Repeat with the other half, requesting new expressions, such as sleepy, spooky, nervous and ‘won-the-lottery’ faces and collect more audience responses.
Listen to the song and notice that the melody goes down and then up. Warm up voices by making ‘roller-coaster’ sounds that swoop high and low, vocalising on the sound ‘Oooooh’.
Can the children remember the order of verses? Ask for four volunteers to stand at the front and ‘model’ each face or action to guide the singers through the sequence. Now sing along – it’s simple, catchy and needs no formal teaching.
Encourage the children to invent new verses, eg. a tearful or a scary face, and sing them with appropriate facial expressions.

PSHE, SEAL, LITERACY (SPEAKING AND LISTENING)

Have large photographs of contrasting facial expressions and use this sequence of questions to elicit responses which will develop vocabulary and help children to understand and share others’ feelings (SEAL: Empathy).
Show a photograph or picture of a person with a happy face. Ask questions such as ‘does this person have a grumpy face?’, ‘what sort of face do you think she’s making?’, ‘can you make a face like this?’, ‘what do you think could have happened to make her feel happy?’, and then ask the children to tell the person next to them something that makes them feel happy. Share and collect responses.
Complete the activity by drawing a happy face in the centre of a sheet of A2 paper, leaving plenty of space around it. Give each child a Post-It label and ask them to write or draw something that has made them happy. These responses can then be stuck around the drawing of the happy face and used as an aid to writing or further discussion.
This activity can be repeated with other ‘faces’, revisiting ideas developed from the song and harnessing children’s thoughts and experiences. Practitioners would, of course, need to be sensitive to children’s individual circumstances when tackling ‘sad’ faces and make themselves aware of any issues that might cause distress.

LITERACY (DRAMA)

Tell the moving and engaging story Dogger by Shirley Hughes, then retell it as a class mime with the practitioner as narrator and the children assuming the roles of the characters, using gesture and facial expression to highlight the events. The story, a classic tale with which all young children can identify, explores many emotions and feelings – excitement, loss, worry, responsibility, empathy, unselfishness and, ultimately, happiness.
(SEAL: Managing feelings).

LITERACY (WRITING)

Use a Shared Writing session to create a class prose poem that encapsulates the story of Dogger demonstrating the sequence of events and the mood changes experienced by the characters.

For example:

Off to the jumble sale

Lots of things on the stalls

Getting lost in the crowds

What an amazing doll!

Everyone wants to win her!

Where’s Dogger?

Where’s Dogger! …

Make a collection of the children’s treasured ‘cuddlies’ and invite class members to ‘interview’ each other about when they were given them, how they acquired their names and other special details.

SCIENCE

Faces can link to QCA units for KS1: Ourselves, Sound and Hearing, Health and Growth.

DESIGN TECHNOLOGY

Design a book of faces and find ways of producing movement for each face, eg. fold paper strips concertina-style, to make wobbly faces, or devise a pull-push ‘shutter’ to turn a sleepy face into a wide-awake face.
Design and make ‘mood’ hats (linked to measurements in ‘Numeracy’) and decorate with accessories to wear for a performance of I’ve got a grumpy face. Sing contrasting ‘face’ verses and involve your audience by asking if they can match each hat to its face or mood.

ICT

Ask everyone to practise making a face that shows a definite emotion, using mirrors to perfect the look! Work in pairs to capture these faces with digital cameras and arrange the photos as a patchwork montage. Debate and decide on the best adjective to describe each face and add these descriptive word labels to the photos.

ART AND DESIGN

Ask the children to work in pairs to study each other’s faces, then draw or paint them to show a specific mood, ready for a gallery. Explore famous portraits from the National Portrait Gallery website and see if the children can ascribe any emotions to these faces.
Make dramatic over-sized mood masks using torn paper collage. Stick torn fragments from magazines and textured papers on to cardboard bases to make fearsome faces. Glue on bits of shaped cardboard to create 3D noses, eyebrows or lips, that produce exaggerated effects when covered with collage layers.
Investigate masks from art collections for ideas. Study the famous optical illusion that can be ‘interpreted’ as being a young or old woman – two faces in one drawing! Take a long look to find the second image; it’s really hard to see!

PE

Make up new verses from I’ve got a grumpy face and invent warm-ups to sing before a PE or Dance lesson: ‘I’ve got a hopping foot … two bouncy knees … two waving arms … two jumping feet … (last line) it/they move(s) like this!'

NUMERACY

Surveys – Give every child a paper plate and ask them to draw a happy face on one side and a sad face on the other. Use them to conduct ‘surveys’; for instance, show pictures of different foods and appoint survey ‘chiefs’ to count the numbers of likes and dislikes. You could add a ‘don’t know’ face and collect more varied data.
Measuring – Ask the children to work in pairs and measure the circumference of each other’s head, just above the eyebrows. Order the measurements from largest to smallest. Do some people share the same hat size?
Problem solving – Solve some ‘face’ problems, eg. How many ears in Class 3? (Is there a quick way to find the answer?) If 10 people each wiggled their nose for 30 seconds, one after the other, how long would the wiggling last? Invite the children to invent more.

Sue Nicholls has published many books for generalist teachers with A&C Black and contributed several songs to other song collections. She works as a freelance music education consultant, providing nationwide INSET and training.

More Online

Download our special Pyramid Pack for children facing difficulties in their social and emotional development in the Magazine Area in the Bonus Content section.