This article uses content from a NAEYC article published Winter 2023.
Music is beneficial to kids of all ages as it builds social, emotional, and cognitive skills. You don’t have to be musically inclined or creative to incorporate music into your everyday classroom routine.
Here are eight ways you can start incorporating music into your day:
- Start simply by thinking of songs you may already do such as a welcome song or clean-up song that is a repetitive set of lyrics you sing or recite and change the tempo or expressions each day.
- Create piggy-back songs. They are different words set to familiar tunes. Here is an example from the NAEYC article “To the tune of “Wheels on the Bus” sing: The children in the class, tidy-up, tidy-up, tidy-up. The children in the class tidy-up, af-ter work time.”
- Make music multimodal by adding body gestures to simple songs so they can express themselves more freely.
- Use recorded music to introduce music from different cultures and genres. There are many apps to download and connect to speakers in the classroom.
- Introduce instruments such as symbols, maracas, or drums and they can be handmade out of plastic bottles with corn or a cardboard oatmeal container. Let them explore the instruments.
- Create challenges and ask questions to see if they can only play instruments during certain parts of the song and can they tell similarities in songs.
- Ask families to participate and share favorite songs or sing a song in their language.
- Be patient and allow time to get accustomed to music and you will build their confidence and yours.
Children of all ages love to sing, dance, and make their own music. Let them explore music through play and give them opportunities to familiarize themselves as they develop many different skills.
