Early Years Teaching and Music Workshops

Current weekly groups at:

Skylark Nursery, Devon

Orchard Preschool, Lustleigh

SaMM - Totnes Saturday Morning Music School: 

Sing and Play - Reception and Year 1

Music Foundation - Year 2/3

Group sessions: Creative foundations in music making - 'Storytree Music'

For the children the sessions are great fun and there is lots of laughter and humour - but the foundation of all the activities is very carefully thought out - developing a wide range of skills and learning for the children.

Rachel is both a multi-instrumentalist musician and a music therapist. She is very experienced in working with early years. She has also worked for many years professionally as a puppeteer and storyteller.

Musically - she covers the building blocks of music such as high and low, fast and slow, loud and quiet etc. She teaches singing and pitch awareness and includes lots of songs and nursery rhymes.

This builds the foundation for creative music making and story - and includes important foundation skills for literacy, numeracy and emotional and social development - including building confidence and self-expression and language.

Movement and music - games and songs that encourage musical awareness through movement - children find it exciting to hear the music played and adapted to them.

Social awareness and confidence is a feature of these sessions - helping children to both feel happy to be part of a group as well as leading the group at times in games.

Language development - songs and rhymes help develop language skills.

Seasonal festivals - the sessions are often linked to the time of year - with stories and puppets to bring awareness of the time of year and children’s environment.

She often brings in different musical instruments - and the children have the opportunity to stay after the session to try out the instuments. By the time the children leave nursery and go to school they are familiar with many instruments - including violin, cello, piano, flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet and a variety of guitars and percussion instruments.

End of term puppet shows - at the end of term Rachel performs a simple puppet show for the children - often with children participating in the music or creating the puppets. She works with different types of puppetry - including shadow puppets, hand puppets or simply just using soft toys, play material and natural materials to create a story and scene.