I have written a workbook called “Pentatonic Fun” for Year 3. It is about pentatonic scales and Chinese music. Children have quite a lot of work to complete in the workbook:

1. Learning the words – scale, pentatonic, guzheng, pipa, dizi, erhu, molihua, ostinato, drone, solo, duet, trio, quartet, tutti.
2. Identifying, drawing and listening to music that uses guzheng, pipa, dizi and erhu
3. Singing the Chinese songs “Molihua”, “Rainbow Sister” and “Little Silver Moon”
4. Composing ostinati and composing new lyrics to a song
5. Performing pentatonic melodies on xylophones and recorders
6. Responding to a video of the four instruments playing an arrangement of “Molihua”
7. Learning how jianpu works and how to translate it into letter notation
8. Learning a little about the piece “Ambush from Ten Sides” played on the pipa and about a famous battle in Chinese history
9. Composing music to depict a battle in small groups
10. Learning to play solo, duet, trio, quartet and tutti

I will be trying out the booklet in January – if anyone else is interested please feel free to download and use.