Year Level Snapshots: A Birds-Eye View of Year 3 with Deb and Debbie | 104

Welcome to “Year Level Snapshots,” where we dive into each year level, sharing what we love about teaching music from Prep to Year 6. 

Today, we’re thrilled to talk about Year 3 in the music room—a year full of excitement and growth.

Links Mentioned in the Episode:
💻 Step UP

Previous Episodes Mentioned:
🎙️Episode 72: Together Sing 

Where to find me: 

Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
Official Crescendo Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrescendoMusicEd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDeb

Introduction

Here is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 104.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to elder’s past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

If you’d prefer to listen to this episode, click here!

About ‘Read the Episode’: Sometimes, we would rather skim visually than listen to a podcast! That’s a great way to learn too!
The transcript of episode 104 of The Crescendo Music Education Podcast is below.

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Debbie O’Shea 

Welcome to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast. In this episode I’m joined again by the lovely, amazing Deb Brydon.

Deb Brydon 

Hi everybody.

Debbie O’Shea 

We’re going to have a chat about Grade Three. So this is part of our series where we’re looking at each year level. We’re going to start with a bit of a bird’s eye view. Deb, tell us bird’s eye view of Year Three.

Recorders!

Deb Brydon 

Well, I love Year Three. Look, I think I’ve said that about nearly every grade. Similar to Year Two, they can do more, and I find they they’re truly, really, still excited. I start recorder halfway through Year Three, recorders get a bad rap but kids really love them, and they are such a useful learning tool. There’s so much for them to learn, not just recorder. There’s so much to learn through playing them, but if you don’t do recorder whatever, that’s your choice. Just don’t bag it, because other people find it really useful, like me, anyway.

I talked to my Year Two’s at the end of last year about buying their recorders and getting the right brand and all that sort of thing. They just couldn’t be more excited. The worst part is they’re going to bring them in at the beginning of the year, and I’m going to put them in a box in the classroom, and they won’t be able to touch them for six months. And they will ask me, even though I tell them not until after the holidays in June, they will ask me a number of times, are we doing recorder yet? They are dying to do it.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, they do get very excited. I start recorder in Year Three as well. I start straight away though.

Deb Brydon 

You’re not as mean as me making them wait. I tell them, we’ve still got things to learn first.

Debbie O’Shea 

I think one of the reasons I can do it is I still have them two lessons a week. In my current situation it’s Grade Four I drop to one lesson a week, and then it’s hard to fit everything in. So yes, I start recorder. I love recorder, too. I don’t do it nearly as much as I could/should, but it never will be my main focus. But I think this is why I love recorders. It’s accessible. They’re accessible, they’re affordable. I think it teaches a lot of really good skills. It actually leads quite well to other more official woodwind instruments and I insist on left hand on the top, and we have to learn to cover holes properly, and we have to learn to have steady, gentle breath.

There’s so many things that are actually really good learnings for instrumental and on top of that, it is actually a beautiful instrument. And I think if you have a sequence and you teach it well, and you don’t just let them blast, it’s a gorgeous instrument- and affordable, and accessible.

So that’s why I do it and I do recorder with them in Year Three and then I continue a bit in Year Four, but I don’t get as far as I want in Year Four. So my aim, I guess I’ll talk about this in our next episode. My aim is to actually get them a little more advanced in Year Four, but that’s what I do. The other thing I love about Year Three is they are musicians, and Deb and I are both very firmly of the opinion that every child we teach, they all are musicians, but I find that in Year Three, they start to be able to use their music terms and use them correctly, and feel all flash when instead of saying the music’s quiet, they’ll use terms like piano. So I love that they’re looking more officially like musicians using those music terms. And they think they’re clever and they are. So I just think that’s a cute thing about Grade Three.

Repertoire

Deb Brydon 

Yeah, true. So onto some repertoire, starting as we have every time with repertoire, just for singing, for developing that in-tune singing and that confidence of singing. And I’ve got two. One is a bit more of an individual singing Money and the Key where there’s some bits where we all sing together, and some bits where individual children sing. And once again, we’re listening for the timbre of different people’s voices. It doesn’t get old. They love it. Quite happy to keep playing that one and then the other one is a longer song again, and it’s I am Australian, such a beautiful ballad, so emotive and they sing it with gusto. And I really love that with them.

Debbie O’Shea 

I love those two. And Money and the Key is probably my favourite Grade Three game. It’s amazing and I have a tiny little purse that I think Wendy Rolls gave me, and in this little, tiny zip up purse, there’s a plastic key and a plastic shiny coin.

And I get that out and use it lots, so I do love that one. The other one that I really love for singing in Grade Three is Frère Jacques, which probably has been already done, but we bring it back and we do it a fair bit. It’s a great round canon. It’s wonderful, but it’s also really easy to add, well you can add an ostinato to everything, as we know, but this one’s particularly effective to just add the (sings) “din dan don, din dan don (d s, d)”. We can play on chime bars. It’s so easy and so beautiful.

In fact, I’ve even done it as a little choir performance. It went over so well, and all we did was started with the melodic ostinato. We sang it in unison. We then sang it in canon. We finished with the ostinato as a little coda, it was just beautiful. And I have in the past even used this as an assessment task in groups, and we’ve gone over all of these things like melodic ostinato, rhythmic ostinato, introduction, solo singing, duets, whole group, it looked at all of these different ways to perform a song, and they, in a group, have put together a little performance. And then their group will perform it for the class. They come up with some beautiful things, so I just find it a very useful song. Yeah.

Deb Brydon 

So in our last episode, we talked about the fact that you and I do tika tika and minim around the opposite way. So I do tika tika in Year Two and you do minim in Year Two, and then we swap over in Year Three. We just have a different order of doing. If you want to hear about that, go back to the Year Two epsiode. So we’re just going to talk briefly about what your tika tika song is, and my minim song for Year Three.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, and mine’s gotta be Love Somebody (sings) “ti ti tika tika ti ti ta”, last phrase, it’s just yeah, sticking out there, isn’t it? And Tick Tock as a rhyme. So I mentioned them last time, but I’ve got some great actions that I learned from Kate Thompson, thank you, Kate. Sorry. Kate Tyson, yes, she has married. Thank you, Kate. You’re amazing. I do your Tick Tock actions, and we do inner hearing and write the rhythm, and it’s just lots of fun. So Tick Tock the rhyme. And for you minim Deb.

Frère Jacques

Deb Brydon 

Frère Jacques and also Who’s That? Which we did a lot in Year Two as our sort of individual singing song. So now it’s really quite simple at the beginning of Year Three to work out that there’s two beats on one sound.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, I don’t do Frère Jacques for minim. In fact, I don’t do Frère Jacques for rhythm like ever.

Deb Brydon 

Right?

Debbie O’Shea 

Because, to tell you the truth, I’ve never really delved into whether it’s (sings) “ta ta ta” or it’s “ti ti ti ti”.

Deb Brydon 

Yeah it’s 2 metre or 4 metre.

Debbie O’Shea 

I feel it more in (sings) “tika tika ti ti”. That feels to me authentic, which would mean there’s no minim. So therefore, I actually just don’t do it.

Deb Brydon 

You just don’t do it.

Debbie O’Shea 

I just don’t do it. And you know what? It’s so useful singing and performing. But yes, if you’re doing it starting with ta’s it’s absolutely clear for minim isn’t it? Yeah, alright, 3 metre. This is the big year for 3 metre. So we’ve already, actually we didn’t go into it in depth, but in Year Two, we do 2 metre and we make conscious bar lines, a strong beat is first, and we do all of that. I do Diddle Diddle Dumpling, walking with one shoe off and one shoe on. There’s a that’s a whole sequence. We just didn’t have time to cover everything but 3 metre, Grade Three is my 3 metre year, and I’ll let you go first, because you’re picking all my favourites.

Click, Clap, Tap

Deb Brydon 

Oh yeah. Well, look, there’s so many beautiful 3 metre songs. My absolute favourite is Lavender’s Blue, which when I first saw that on a list for 3 metre I thought well Year Three’s are not going to go for that old daggy song. To add a game in, Thank you Lucinda Geoghegan and it’s gold, Lavender’s Blue. The game is just fabulous. If you don’t know it, ask someone around you, you’ll probably find it. It’s just so clear the 3 metre in there. And Once an Austrian, a great old crazy song from The Sing Books, I do a little 3 metre ostinato, movement ostinato with it, just legs, tap, clap, click, or something, oh, goodness, you know, it just comes to you when you sing it.

Deb Brydon 

No I do click.

Debbie O’Shea 

It’s a partner. It’s legs, clap, tap.

Debbie O’Shea 

You do click? Oh, I do it with a partner.

Deb Brydon 

I don’t do it with a partner I just click. There you go. My Ship Sailed from China is great as well. Look a lot of these 3 metre ones are on the Kodály Queensland Step Up DVD as well. There’s some gold in there.

Debbie O’Shea 

I will write in to add the link to Step Up. So great. That is another amazing resource published by Kodály Queensland and the repertoire and the teaching sequences, it’s fabulous. So I’ll put the link to that resource in our show notes. Oh, the only one I would really add to that is Pit Pitter Pat.

Debbie O’Shea 

And it’s just the legs tap together, legs clap together with partners, and then they go over just like that, through the windows, back to back. Tricky, even though we might have done a few of those simpler versions of that, those actions in Grade One and Two, it’s still tricky for some in Grade Three. So Pit Pitter Pat, so you only need a few really good core songs for the actual teaching sequence. You just need a lot to experience in the preparation stage.

Deb Brydon 

Oh, yes, of course.

Deb Brydon 

And Pit Pitter Pat’s on the DVD as well. There you go.

Debbie O’Shea 

So get in there. Buy Step Up. Now the next one is do. I love 1, 2, 3 because there’s one do right at the end and it’s only (sings) 1, 2, 3 so so la la so, so mi so  so mi, so mi, do. It is really Students, children can you hear a note? That’s not la so mi. Okay, it’s pretty obvious. There’s this one beat stuck at the end, same as Peas Porridge Hot.

If you do this now, there’s two main versions of Peas Porridge Hot as well, but if you do the so mi version. (sings) “Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, nine days old”. Oh, I can hear a note that’s not so and mi. So they’re nice and clear and they’re good for writing, simple rhythms too, which is really good. So they’re my two favourite do songs.

Deb Brydon 

Yeah and in a very similar vein, Apple Tree finishing on a do at the end. And they know the song so well from previous years, and also Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear that has a few more do’s in it. But yeah, that, that one’s a lovely one too.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, it’s a good one too. I love doing Fuzzy Wuzzy, certainly in the preparation stage, but in the practice stage it’s so good for them to write out, work it out in stick notation, play it. Play it on percussion. It’s a great performance one. And that just reminded me, another song popped in my head then, but it’s popped out again.

Deb Brydon 

And back out. In one ear and out the other.

The Pentatonic Scale

Debbie O’Shea 

It’s gone. Lots of things do that. And re, Oh, I love it. Actually, I should have said this is one of the things I love about Grade Three. We get the pentatonic scale. And once we’ve got the pentatonic scale,I  just love it. We sing the scale, we learn intervals. That’s something we’re not going to go into but I really, you know, do re, major second. It’s really important. And once we’ve got the pentatonic scale.

Deb Brydon 

The world’s your oyster.

Debbie O’Shea 

I love it. I love it. So, Ray, Rain Come with Me is my favourite because it’s so mi re do. It’s sitting in there beautifully. Can you hear a note? So mines Rain Come with Me, my favourite. Yours Deb?

Deb Brydon 

Bow Wow Wow. Look, this is one of my favourite games. They would play this all lesson if you let them. But I quite like this one, because re sneaks in at the very end of the song, and up till then there’s no re. And so, yeah, I quite like that one.

Debbie’s Overview

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, it is perfect, isn’t it? They’re great and anything else? Before we go on there’s a couple of other things. I’ll just have a quick look at my overview. As usual I’ll pop a little picture of my overview from last year, so you can just have a look at sort of when things are taught, basically. But any others? I wanted to mention Hot Potato, a game that I learnt a very long time ago. I think I learnt this on the equivalent of the 10 week course, which I didn’t get. So I started as a classroom teacher, and then I did a, I believe it was a one week course when they gave me a music teacher job.

So I said I’d like to be a music teacher? They went, “Oh, you’ll need more qualifications.” And then they went, “Oh, actually, here’s the job. You get a week’s training.” Anyway, I was training myself, and I did have a music major, but anyway, on this one week course we did Hot Potato and it’s just fun (sings) “Hot potato, pass it on” and we’ve got to get rid of the hot potato at the end. So I do like that as a game.

Whole-School Singing

And the other thing with Year Three is I find they really get into the whole school singing repertoire. Now, for me, whole school singing is one of the core aims of my whole job. I just think there is magic. I’m at a school of 600, when there are 600 children in a special assembly, and they are all singing a song, one that’s known, two that’s appropriate in many ways, thematically and musically and and it has meaning and relevance. Nothing in their whole school life is as powerful as the whole school singing when done meaningfully. Yeah. Now I know that’s a pretty big statement, isn’t it, but it’s true, I will challenge anyone.

So at our school, we’ve managed now to have four official whole school events where music is core, and I’ve gradually built that up because I’ve been at my current school for seven years. So term one we have Harmony Day, which is the 21st of March. So we do that on our assembly day nearest the 21st of March, and we have the whole school come in, because normally we only have half school at a time at an assembly. It’s gotta be a special event. So the whole school, we do something for Harmony Day. The message for Harmony Day is literally everybody get on with each other.

Deb Brydon 

Be nice.

Debbie O’Shea 

Be nice. Yeah, it doesn’t matter what the colour of your skin is, or where you come from or what your religion is, just get on. We can all be different, but still get on and be tolerant and understanding. And I figure if you’ve got to get on board a day as a music educator Harmony Day has so many levels. Term two we have an a big Anzac Day ceremony. So that’s early in term two so I have to prepare for that in term one. So Anzac Day is pretty big in quite a few schools in Australia. In term three we usually have a celebration for NAIDOC Week. Now NAIDOC Week often occurs in the holidays, but our celebration is early in term three. So this is a week when we celebrate the indigenous people of our country.

So Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. Part of our celebrations involves this special assembly where we sing. And we now have a little bank of songs. In fact, I now have too many songs to really perform, so that’s great because we’ve been building on that one. And in term four we have this little event that may have been invented by Deb and I. And if you don’t know about Together Sing, please have a listen to episode 72, it will give you all of the information.  But I do that in October, where we link group singing with well being. And so we have a whole school event four times a year where we all sing together in a meaningful way. And I find Grade Three’s really get into this, they love it. I’d say they’re my strength. The little ones love it, but they may be don’t know all the words.

Deb Brydon 

They can’t read all the words.

Deb Brydon 

Yes, I agree.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, yeah. I find so the kids sit, Preps up to Year Six, and I find right in the middle where the Year Three’s are, that’s where the energy comes from, they’re magic. So I just wanted to mention that whole school singing with  Year Three. And the only other thing is that I make sure I cover semibreve in their lessons, because they’ve done it in instrumental. In fact, I think don’t they do semibreve first? They learn to blow long notes, and I’m going, Ah, well they’ve learnt that first I should probably put it in my classroom program.

Debbie O’Shea 

I think that’s all I’ve got to say about Year Three. Deb?

A Little Canon

Deb Brydon 

The only other thing I’d say is that we have quite a focus on canons in Year Two. But you know, there’s a danger when you have a focus on something, then you let it go after that. So good to remember to slot a little canon here and there throughout the rest of the time. And Kookaburra is a great one for Year Three. They really enjoy that one. And really, by the time I get to the second half of Year Three, there’s a lot of recorder going on. It probably takes up a third to a half of most of my lessons. So of course, we’re singing in there and doing all our other things as well. But it does take a lot of time for those little fingers.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yeah, and while you were talking about canon and how if you have a bit of a focus, it’s easy then to let it slip. I think that’s the big, big danger of thinking of your planning in units.

Deb Brydon 

Yes.

Debbie O’Shea 

I think that’s the huge danger. And I know I did a couple of years in secondary, teaching high school. I’m back in primary and very happy, but I’m pleased I had that experience. But secondary teachers tend to think in units, and sometimes a secondary teacher that will come into primary, they try and think it like, Okay, I’ve taught chord one and five, so I don’t need to do that again. No. Yes, yes you do. You need to keep doing it. So I just think that’s one of the big dangers with thinking in units, and why I don’t like naming units. Thinking, yeah, that’s done. No, no, it’s not done. Think about how children learn. Think about how anybody learns. You need to revisit things. So that’s just something I think it’s important.

Deb Brydon 

Yes and although we have to plan in units and put up our unit plans, really, our planning is across the whole time, and it’s just sort of divided into units.

Debbie O’Shea 

Yes, yes. And we are in a fairly unique position to do that really, to be able to do it over in our case, seven years.

Deb Brydon 

Yes, yes, you’re right.

Debbie O’Shea 

And on that note, we will leave Year Three, and I will chat again to you Deb about Year Four. Thank you so much for sharing all of your great knowledge.

Deb Brydon 

Thanks for having me on. It’s lovely. It’s nice to think about just that year level, and just have a little dive in.

Debbie O’Shea 

I like it. It is a little problematic, though, because it does make me want to get in there and go, oh, oh, I’ll just tweak my repertoire list. Oh, can we start our lesson planning, it almost opens the door and shows you all of the other things.

Deb Brydon 

It does, it gets you excited.

Debbie O’Shea 

It is nice. It is nice. And I love working with you Deb, to help me keep excited, and I will talk to you again soon.

Deb Brydon 

Okay, thanks. See you. Bye everyone.

Sign-Off

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget, you’ll find the show notes and transcript and all sorts of information on crescendo.com.au. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast or found it valuable, you might like to rate it on your podcast player and leave a review. I’d really appreciate it if you did. All I can be as the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. Until next time, bye.

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