PNK CHILDREN’S MUSIC GROUP (A.K.A MONDAY MUSIC)
We are an informal music group that usually meet in the North hall of Penicuik North Kirk. We have a varied membership made up of parents, grandparents & childminders.
We encourage children aged from a few weeks old to 5 years to enjoy music and rhyme through the use of pre-recorded music, musical instruments and lots of actions and movement. We are one of the few groups that actively cater for sibling groups of varying ages.
This year has been a very different year for the group, we ended our face-to-face sessions in March, however I felt there was still very much a need on several levels for the group to meet, so I organised for us to move to virtual sessions using the Zoom platform. I continued with our format of 45 minutes music, dance and song with 45 minutes for coffee and chat afterward, as I felt continuity was really important for the children and the adults.
The virtual sessions were very popular and worked well. Every song still had either an instrument, a prop or lots of actions and we continued this. The children brought their own instruments, pots as drums and anything that was to hand! I also used videos to stream some of the songs we normally use in our virtual sessions as I found a varied approach using lots of different media worked best and engaged the children to a greater extent. Many of our songs are assisted by Makaton signs, we continued this and it is lovely to see how quickly the children learn the signs and actively join in.
During our usual Children’s Choice time we all sit on mats and each of the children takes a turn to choose a song. We sometimes sing the same song quite a few times because they all enjoy certain ones so much! We are careful to thank each child for their choices. We continued children’s choice in our virtual sessions, again to great effect.
We stopped charging once our face-to-face sessions stopped. For the first few months we used our savings to pay for membership to the Zoom platform before switching over to free zoom. However, this meant we had to log off and back on every 40 minutes. We ended our virtual sessions in November 2020 as everything slowly seemed to be restarting and we hoped to be back meeting face to face in early 2021. However, that is not currently looking likely so I will look to resuming virtually. Our numbers are healthy: we have paused taking on new families however we have had a new addition join us from one of our families.
(updated April 2021)
We are an informal music group that usually meet in the North hall of Penicuik North Kirk. We have a varied membership made up of parents, grandparents & childminders.
We encourage children aged from a few weeks old to 5 years to enjoy music and rhyme through the use of pre-recorded music, musical instruments and lots of actions and movement. We are one of the few groups that actively cater for sibling groups of varying ages.
This year has been a very different year for the group, we ended our face-to-face sessions in March, however I felt there was still very much a need on several levels for the group to meet, so I organised for us to move to virtual sessions using the Zoom platform. I continued with our format of 45 minutes music, dance and song with 45 minutes for coffee and chat afterward, as I felt continuity was really important for the children and the adults.
The virtual sessions were very popular and worked well. Every song still had either an instrument, a prop or lots of actions and we continued this. The children brought their own instruments, pots as drums and anything that was to hand! I also used videos to stream some of the songs we normally use in our virtual sessions as I found a varied approach using lots of different media worked best and engaged the children to a greater extent. Many of our songs are assisted by Makaton signs, we continued this and it is lovely to see how quickly the children learn the signs and actively join in.
During our usual Children’s Choice time we all sit on mats and each of the children takes a turn to choose a song. We sometimes sing the same song quite a few times because they all enjoy certain ones so much! We are careful to thank each child for their choices. We continued children’s choice in our virtual sessions, again to great effect.
We stopped charging once our face-to-face sessions stopped. For the first few months we used our savings to pay for membership to the Zoom platform before switching over to free zoom. However, this meant we had to log off and back on every 40 minutes. We ended our virtual sessions in November 2020 as everything slowly seemed to be restarting and we hoped to be back meeting face to face in early 2021. However, that is not currently looking likely so I will look to resuming virtually. Our numbers are healthy: we have paused taking on new families however we have had a new addition join us from one of our families.
(updated April 2021)