Music Mites

Music Mites use original songs and creative workshops to offer a participative style of music making to parents, carers and practitioners supporting the development of young children.

Musical Parties

Want a party that your child, their friends and the adults love, which takes the minimal amount of organisation? Alternatively, do you simply want to provide some fantastic children’s entertainment as part of a christening, wedding or family day celebration? The Music Mites Party Team will help make the day extra special.

Running 45 minutes, and packed full of great musical entertainment and activity, their parties capture children’s imaginations, channel their energy and are suitable for one to six year olds. However large or small the event, their music, activities and assortment of props – from drums and shakers to tapping sticks – will engage every child, making it party to remember for all the right reasons!

In addition to the music, they can organise craft activities that complement your party’s theme. These can be musical crafts (making and decorating shakers, drums and tapping sticks) or making masks, jewellery, models, paper dolls or fairies with costumes!

Themed Workshops

Workshops are based around subject and musical themes that cover many aspects of the Early Years National Curriculum.

Subject Themes: Food, Dinosaurs, The Jungle, The Farm, Fairytales, The Weather, The Seasons, The World Around Us, The Sea, Water, Ourselves, Recycling, The Arctic, Fireworks, Transport, Christmas

Musical Themes: The Octave, Rhythm in Words, Keeping Time, Moods in Music, Singing and Vocalisation, Descriptive Use of Instruments, Body Percussion, Environmental Wounds, Jungle Percussion, Practicing for a Performance, Loud and Soft Dynamics, Fast and Slow

The Workshops follow a flexible format to meet the stage of the group. In general the structure is based on the following outline:

1. Vocal warm up
2. Physical activity
3. Themed section involving a story, rhymes, role-play and Music Mites songs
4. Percussion session involving use of home-made instruments following a conductor or body percussion
5. Cool down, using soft toys and lullabies

Early Years Practitioner Music and Movement Programmes

Originally compiled as a training and teaching resource for practitioners in early years settings to enable a rich and varied music provision as part of everyday activities. These Music and Movement Programmes are highly recommended, supporting Early Years Foundation Stage both in a setting and at home.

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Encouraging confidence, social and emotional development and self expression through music and group work
• Communications, Language and Literacy: Developing communication and listening skills through sounds, rhymes, songs and rhythm exercises
• Knowledge and Understanding of the World: Learning about the world around us, exploring themes using props, stories, songs and role play
• Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy: Laying strong foundations for problem solving, reasoning and numeracy using sorting, sequencing, number games and songs and mathematical language
• Physical Development: Developing physical co-ordination through action songs, dance and use of basic instruments
• Creative Development: Encouraging parents, carers, practitioners and children to indulge their creativity, through the use of home-made, eco-friendly props and instruments, original songs and performance in flexible format workshops

Schools and Nurseries

A popular choice for primary schools and nurseries, Music Mites essentially offer four services that can be tailored to your requirements.

• Regular Workshops: a popular choice in many foundation stage settings. They can either lead a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly music workshop with a group or several groups of children
• Special Events: Perfect entertainment for an open day, term time celebration organised by the staff or the PTA, they can offer music and craft activities that are centred around a theme of your choice or provide an enjoyable activity the family can join in with at the school fair
• Practitioner Training Workshops (see above) are increasingly in demand as their programmes provide a fantastic teaching resource for the early years. They run inset, twilight or central training sessions for Early Years Professionals to cover any of their music and movement programmes that support the EYFS
• Parent Workshops are an excellent way for creating links between parents and an educational setting. The parent workshops empower the child’s primary carer to support learning in the home environment. They have been very successful in supporting a child’s transition into school. Feedback they have gained indicates that pupils attending with parents before the summer holiday love joining in with the familiar songs, especially during the first weeks of school, which aids transition period.

Whether it is visiting your setting on a regular basis, making special visits to celebrate a key theme or training all your early years professionals to use their programmes, Music Mites offers fantastic resources for early year settings.

Through the experience and feedback gained from their clients, Music Mites is continuously working on creating new and innovative programmes to make sure that children have access to great music to support their development. They can write new songs and compile programmes to support any specific area of learning or to link with conference topics and party themes.

TESTIMONIALS

Parties

“Millie loved her…party, she hasn’t stopped singing to the party CD you left – now everyday is a birthday party!”

“Just wanted to say that we had a great time on Saturday and were really pleased with Jill your workshop leader who came to help at Nell’s party. Nell really enjoyed it as did all the other kids. We would definitely recommend [you] to anyone planning a party”

“Thank you for such a successful party. The children loved the music from the two year olds to the seven year olds to the 60 plus year olds!”

Activity Days

“The activity day…consisted of a two hour session in morning and repeated in the afternoon. Fifteen plus families attended each session with children aged one to 10.  The feedback from parents was very good and the participation by parents and children showed how successful the staff were at involving everyone. The children really enjoyed making and using their own instruments.” Angie Potter, QTI, Little Waves CC Gosport

“The children had a brilliant afternoon; everything was carefully planned with lost of hands on activities for the children and the adults. The music finale was brilliant as the children were able to use what they had made to make music. Every child was enthralled and involved.” Early Years Play Worker, Brandlehow Activity Centre, Surrey.

Conferences

“By the time we got to song number three…inhibition had been thrown to the wind and we were all having a little too much more fun than is strictly allowed at a conference…This workshop was practical and fun, packed full of ideas that practitioners could take away and try out at home at very little cost.” Amy Griggs, Editor, Child Care magazine