Sunshine, Teddy Bears and Steel Tongue Drums


Welcome back to Term 2 everyone. It seems to have been a wonderful holiday break with many families able to head away from Melbourne for a change of scenery. We have plenty of exciting adventures in music to look forward to this Term so I’m very happy to be back and swinging straight into action with the Super Prep Star’s Teddy Bears Picnic and the Mother’s and Special Carer’s Day Assembly. Also, I am super excited to have received a delivery of 6 steel tongue drums which will inspire some contemplative improvisation.

The Teddy Bear’s Picnic is a much loved and anticipated Prep Community occasion. When the Picnic was first established, no one can quite remember. Julie remembers that in her first year at PHPS the Preps had a Teddy Bear’s Picnic so the tradition was well established then. Those Preps should be celebrating their 30th birthdays by now! The Teddy Bear’s Picnic song first appeared in 1907 as a marching song called the ’Teddy Bear Two-Step’ by John Walter Bratton. The lyrics were especially written for the melody in 1932 by the Irish lyricist Jimmy Kennedy and was originally sung by Val Rosing, and later Bing Crosby in 1950. At school, we have been enjoying Anne Murray’s version.

Teddy Bear’s Picnic 2022: carrying on the tradition.

We are absolutely delighted that we were so fortunate to have a brisk and sunny day for our Picnic. The preps performed their song wonderfully and had a joyous rambling play at the Railway Park. What a great way to celebrate our Prep community and the growth in our young students. Bravo Preps.

The steel tongue drums, like the ones illustrated, have been available in this form since 2007. They are a recent addition to the percussion family of idiophone instruments and are popular for their mesmerising soft tones which blend like soothing meditation gongs. These instruments relate to the magnificent hang pans for their etherial sound, and continue an evolution of idiomatic tongue style instruments which reach back to ancient times across many continents. I look forward to sharing these instruments with the students, but in the meantime, they will be available in the Discovery Centre for the students to explore.

Since returning to school we have been enjoying our music sessions out side as we prepare songs for the Mother’s and Carer’s Day Assembly, and revisit clapping and dance games. We look forward to presenting our own special version of ’You Are My Sunshine’ for our Mums and Special Carers. So many students have mentioned how meaningful this song is for them as they have memories of being lullabied to sleep to the chorus of this song. Many thanks to our Year 2s for their original lyrics to verse 2.

It has also been great fun to reconnect with the 3/4 Uke Club. I’m so chuffed that with a brief lead time, our Uke Club players were able to brush up their skills in time to accompany the whole school’s sing for Friday’s Assembly. Uke Club is a great way to strum away the winter blues, and we will reestablishing Uke Clubs in the 3/4 and 5/6 Neighbourhoods. This was on our wish list for last year, but with all the onsite weeks lost to COVID, we missed this opportunity.

The 3/4 Uke Club.

Many thanks to everyone for a great start to this Term and take care over the next weeks. Cheerio, Deb.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *