Schools & Kindergartens

Outdoor musical instruments present schools and kindergartens with an excellent way of incorporating outdoor education into the day-to-day curriculum. They make creative playground equipment and fantastic music education resources.

A music garden or outdoor 'soundscape' will excite and inspire children musically while they enjoy the obvious benefits that come from spending time in the natural environment, exploring new sounds whilst enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. An outdoor musical playground will provide young children with opportunities for early interaction and positive experiences with music. A facility where children can explore, create and develop their own musical ideas and sounds - maximizing the musical potential of a child during their most rapid developmental period while discovering the joy and empowerment of music-making.

Designed to withstand the elements they help create an outdoor environment that supports young children's health, wellbeing, development, and learning. Children will love the fact that music can be used in a context outside of the classroom and their clever design and use of the pentatonic scale, they’re so easy to play that children are able to develop musical skills without having to manage any technical demands of an instrument, instantly showing what can be expressed and achieved through music.

In a free-play environment, where there are no wrong notes, the experience can lead to a life-long love of music and music-making. We believe creativity, imagination and discovery should be strongly facilitated and encouraged in music education and through active learning: hands-on, participative and interactive, children's musical self-expression, self-confidence, and self-esteem will grow and grow.

Being outdoors helps ensure children have genuine freedom of musical expression. Behind this is the notion of experimentation, of flexibility, of having a go. Most important of all, they come to understand the pleasure of enjoying music.

Using musical instruments in the playground alongside games and movement, the children are introduced to the elements needed to become confident, rounded musicians.

• Pulse: The steady beat that keeps going at the same speed for the length of a piece of music
• Rhythm: How the beat is subdivided into longer or shorter notes
• Pitch: Notes moving higher and lower
• Improvisation: The ability to invent your own music
• Co-ordination: Pulling together the physical, technical and musical aspects
• Expression: the ability to identify and convey emotional content

Percussion Play produce many different outdoor musical instruments suitable for your school playground, outdoor classroom, sensory gardens or performance areas.