Written by: Bella Seymour (Spring 2020)
In this range of activities, your child will be able to experience music through their body, as well as through cognition, and emotional regulation. They will also learn independence as they make their very own instruments!
What will children learn? Children will practice fine and gross motor skills, pattern building, and emotional awareness and regulation.
Preparation
— Instruments
- Drums: can include Tupperware, pots/pans, metal containers, cans, and boxes (*These can be muffled with a towel for any child who is hearing sensitive*)
- Drumsticks: wooden or plastic spoons
- Shaker: dried foods (i.e., beans, popcorn) or pebbles in a container with a press-on lid OR a bottle with a twist-off cap (*Twisting a bottle can be a beneficial fine motor skill for a child to develop, with scaffolding*)
— A Speaker/ Phone to play songs
Dancing + Movement
Compile lists of songs you know that are “sad” and “happy” sounding. These factors usually have to do with whether the song is in a major or minor key. Major key is happy sounding, cheerful, and peppy. Minor is gloomy, sad, and sorrowful. It is innate to hear emotions in a song.
Some recommendations:
- Ode to Joy by Beethoven
- Prelude in C Major by Bach
Minor song examples:
- Summer by Antonio Vivaldi
- Fur Elise by Beethoven
During these songs, I would take time to have the children physically express how the song makes them feel. Leading by example might be helpful; dance to whatever your heart’s content. Leading this with moving words, such as “gallop, smooth, fast, slow, small, and big” will aid in expanding their musical vocabulary.
Making Music
I find that using rhyming words is a smooth introduction for children to create music. For example, a phrase to begin questions like “biggity biggity biggity bance, how do you like to dance?” and then repeating it a few times. The easy thing about this phrasing is that you can change the end word for it to rhyme. Like replacing it with ‘bing and sing!’
Making music will become even more thrilling for the child with the instruments you have already created. It can involve:
- Singing, with the child playing an instrument to your voice
- Child leads by playing a beat on their instrument, and singing could be added onto that
The syllables in words can really be focused on here during song-making. Tapping, playing, or clapping to the syllables of a string of words can stimulate the child’s further awareness of syllables later on in their development.
Play Back to Me
In order to introduce these new and unheard vocabulary words that come from music, a good way to have the child feel autonomous and learn new words would be a playback sort of activity.
- Have the child, using their instrument of choice, play a rhythm.
- Say, “I am going to play the rhythm you just made!” and replicate it with your hands, or your instrument.
- Go back and forth, with the child giving you rhythms and you playing them. Maybe switch off and ask them to play a rhythm you create!
How are these activities going to benefit my child?
For parents at home wondering what dancing and banging drums has to do with their child’s overall development, here are a few helpful tips!
Firstly, a helpful guide for you to know the overall goals of your child and their peers in their development is a guideline called the Creative Curriculum. This was developed by a company called Teaching Strategies and is an over-arching list of some of the achievements you should strive for your child. Many schools will be using this in their classroom to meet the needs of their students. There is a list of goals for every grade, however, the one I use is the preschool Creative Curriculum. They are numbered and are clumped together by development types. Social, physical, cognitive, and language development are covered by this curriculum.
Here, I have listed some of the verbatim goals from the Creative Curriculum, so parents and family members can see the ease of using this to format activities at home!
For their cognitive development: they are recognizing patterns, as well as repeating them. They explore cause and effect with instruments. They also are, through music, taking on pretend roles and situations.
For the child’s physical development: they are demonstrating basic locomotor skills through dance. They also show hand-eye coordination when using instruments. They will also show balance while moving.
For the child’s language and social development: the child shows they can listen to and follow oral directions. The child also demonstrates care for materials.
- Rhyming is a pivotal point in a child’s early literacy growth. A study done by Laurie Harper from the University of Rhode Island (2011) suggests that children who have been amply exposed to rhymes (specifically nursery rhymes) show higher phonological awareness and a sensitivity to individual phonemes (which are distinct sounds in words).
References
Dodge, D. T., Colker, L. J., & Heroman, C. (2008). The creative curriculum for preschool: College edition. Washington, D.C.: Teaching Strategies
Harper, L. J. (2011). Nursery rhyme knowledge and phonological awareness in preschool children. The Journal of Language and Literacy Education [Online], 7(1), 65-78.