Music focus: Australiana

We're still slowly moving through our Sonlight curriculum, but this will be our last week of schooling before taking a break.

Our studies in Core 5 are taking us from the Pacific Islands to Australia.

We begin our focus with the Aboriginals, a people who have a way of telling their stories through dance, often mimicking animal antics, acting out a hunting story, or retelling ancient stories from their dreamtime. It is very much a part of their social life. Some more lovely photos can be seen here.

For a more contemporary feel, we will be listening to Yothu Yindi (an Aboriginal band). The lyrics are of a political nature, but it's worth discussing some of these issues with the children, as well as how song can be a way of putting your voice out to the public.







I've grown up with lots of Rolf Harris, who is now very popular in England, although I do think the younger generation have missed out on hearing many of his songs.  Thankfully some of them are still pretty well known.

This is a lovely video, showing some beautiful photography, with an easy song for the children to learn: Sun Arise (lyrics can be found here).







Now, you can't listen to Rolf Harris without listening to his famous "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", with his fabulous wobble-board.  I can see this integrating with some art work onto some thin plyboard for our own wobble-boards.

I've written about some of the bush dances we've learnt in the past, and we really like Australian folk music here. Here's another great webpage with lots of interesting information on bush songs.  My children still don't know enough bush songs by my reckoning, so we'll be learning a few more.

If you're keen, you can google to find some of these songs with video clips:

- Waltzing Matilda

- Road to Gundagai

- Botany Bay

- Old Man Emu
- Clancy of the Overflow
and others can be found here, with music (midi files) and words.