Little Red Riding Hood: 6. What big eyes you've got!

The Wolf peers out from the pantry...but Grandma is nowhere to be seen. He creeps upstairs to her bedroom and thinks he can see her under the bedclothes - but Grandma has tricked him! Then he hears a faint cough from above and realises Grandma is hiding in the attic. Grandma is in a feisty mood but the Wolf says he intends to save her for later, so he locks her in the attic. Then he goes downstairs again and puts on one of Grandma's nighies, to disguise himself as her. He gets into bed, pulls the sheets up to his eyes, and waits for Red Riding Hood to come in. She comes upstairs and approaches the bed, but there seems to be something wrong - Grandma doesn't sound like Grandma...or look like her! The Wolf rises from the bed and Red Riding Hood is frozen to the spot.

Encourage the children to listen carefully to the jumpyrhythm of the chorus and to sing it with lots of energy. Practise speaking the chorus slowly, before singing it, to make the words as clear as you can.

Practise the spoken section in Verse 3.

Practise the two-part section, at the end of Verse 3, when the Wolf snarls at Grandma and she screams.

Click here for the backing track version of the song or go to the Clips page.

The focus is rhythm. Sarah Jane sings different notes, in an ascending and descending scale and the children copy. They lift their hands and lower them, to show the notes ascending and descending.

Later, in pairs, the children can work together to sing a short phrase of high notes, then a phrase of low notes. Then share and compare them with the rest of the class.

Tuned percussion instruments could be used instead of singing, if they are available.

The arrival of the Queen of Sheba from Solomon, by Handel (1748).

What is the mood of the music? What do children think it might be about?

The instruments playing the main melody are violins - part of the string family.

Is the tempo - fast or slow? (Fast!)

There are some other instruments that come in later (at 28 seconds) called the clarinet and the oboe - woodwind instruments.