Learning in Motion - Why Music and Movement Belong Together in the Early Years

Movement and music go hand-in-hand in early childhood. In English, we use separate words for music and dancing, but many languages combine the idea of audio and physical movement, which echoes the response children have to music – they just have to move! As a result, the combination of music with movement creates a powerful and vivid visual expression of what is usually only an auditory experience.

Dalcroze Eurhythmics

Many music educators have recognised for some time that moving to music has a powerful effect on the audience. Interestingly, they also found that moving to music makes a great impact on the people moving or dancing, and can actually change or enhance their experience of music-making through movement. And just as dancers associate music with specific movements, there has been research to show that the reverse is true, too – musicians remember pieces and make them more expressive when rehearsed with movement.

One such educator was a French composer, Emile Jacques-Dalcroze (1865-1950). After spending a significant period of time studying classical music techniques, he was introduced to Arab folk music, developing a new form of music notation based on the impact of movement on music. He used his experience to show that music consisted of music note training through singing (solfa), creating spontaneous and deliberate movement expressing musical concepts (improvisation), and specific movements to physically represent music (eurhythmics). These three skills are still taught today all over the world, developing musicianship skills by becoming the music, with training courses available in London and Manchester.

Embodied Cognition

This concept of combining music and movement corresponds directly with a major recent influence in music: embodied cognition, or the theory that learning develops from physical movement. Using three systems, the motor system, perception and environmental interaction, learning develops a wide variety of skills including perception, memory, comprehension, meaning and categorisation. These are important foundational skills, supporting resilience amongst other essential life skills.

Simple exercises and music games, from walking to the beat, to gently jogging or skipping to musical rhythms can subconsciously – and physically – teach ideas like timing, planning, delayed gratification and co-operation well before children have the vocabulary to articulate these ideas. One tool that helps to observe and identify musical skills is the 2015 Sounds of Intent framework, https://soundsofintent.org.

Spatial Music

Spatial music can have a great impact in encouraging and inspiring movement, too. Historically it is an old concept, where words or refrains are repeated within religious ceremonies to create a specific emotional effect, for example. More recently, composers have created music for orchestras to performed in a particular way or in a specific building because of the specific acoustics, including Forsyth (1985), Xenakis (1965), Varèse (1958) and Dobos (2024).

Within early childhood settings, spatial music may look like multiple different types of music within different spaces where children move through. Alternatively, different types of instruments can be explored for the effect that they have in different spaces – metal, wood, wind, strings all sound different in small rooms, outside, high ceilings, empty rooms.

The next three suggested songs are all pentatonic, perfect for new singers to learn to sing successfully, and introduce movement in a meaningful and musical way.

Andy Pandy

Andy Pandy sugar and candy, all jump up

Andy Pandy sugar and candy, all jump down

Andy Pandy sugar and candy, all jump in

Andy Pandy sugar and candy, all jump out

This song focuses on action prepositions using a lovely 6/8 skipping beat. Different ways that this song can be used include:

walking in a circle holding hands
using a parachute, or
simply skipping around the room using the words as stop-start signals

The repeated words are easy to remember, and the music uses pentatonic notes which are perfect for new or non-confident singers.

Bounce High

Bounce high, bounce low

Bounce the ball to Shiloh

Roll here, roll there

Roll the ball to Leicester Square

This lovely quick song introduces ball play to music sessions! Developing hand-eye co-ordination along with musical creativity, this song helps to recognise and build an internal sense of timing. Timing helps with developing delayed gratification, essential for teamwork, co-operative activities and group games.

This can be played using larger, easy-catch balls between two for younger children or tennis balls for older children. The benefit of pairing children is that they learn from and teach each other through behaviour and reactions, having to co-operate to play successfully. As children get older, the game can be used to bounce or roll the ball on a specific beat, getting them to feel the heavy 1^st beat, the next heaviest 3^rd beat, or even the lightest 4^th beat.

When rolling the ball, children can learn about the effort it takes to roll a ball quickly or slowly, subconsciously developing important physics concepts in science. Roll the ball for the duration of each line, or make it shorter or longer!

Here Comes A Bluebird

Here comes a bluebird in through my window

Hey, diddle dum a day, day, day

Take a little partner and jump in the garden

Hey, diddle dum a day, day, day

This lovely circle song also uses concept of in and out. Children stand in a circle holding hands raised in arches. One child “flies” in and out of each arch/”window” and on the third line, chooses a child to jump with in the middle of the circle. Children often choose their friends, running more quickly or slowly to get to the chosen person. One way to mix this up and randomise it is by getting children to step to the beat, or step to the rhythm of the words. Practising the sequence altogether first and then turning it into a singing game afterwards makes success more likely, e.g.

Here comes a blue – bird

Walk jogging walk walk

In through my win – dow

Walk jogging walk walk

Hey diddle dum-a day, day, day

Long step jogging jogging walk walk walk

Movement can be added in many ways during the day, and music is a fairly obvious – and enjoyable – way to do it. Children naturally respond physically, and using games with awareness makes progression easier to identify and support. Can there be any better way to learn!

Artificial Intelligence or AI is arguably one of the biggest changes to industry, with the potential to impact all of education including early years, even music. Studies show that 90% of early years educators have heard of AI, 50% use it, 17% are prepared to pay for it, and 95% of early years educators believe it would be helpful in the classroom. But can it be used for creativity, like music?

The Future of AI

With the rise of AI, many industry leaders have recognised that accounts and law have more potential at being computerised and automated, well before replacing person-centred jobs like teaching, nursing and therapy. While many will wish to go back to simpler times before AI, it looks like it is here to stay, much like computers.

So while teachers won’t be replaced, they may instead find that AI becomes a powerful ally in supporting their research, prep, and paperwork. Imagine designing the perfect, age-appropriate early years music session, with all the research and perfectly-chosen examples ready for you, with just one perfectly worded question!

Research

A few companies are working on AI for nursery (kindergarten), like PopBots. They aim to improve the quality of early childhood education and have published studies claiming that where teachers have used AI, the quality of teaching improved dramatically.

Looking at a number of mainly western studies, one paper found that early years teaching quality improved specifically when using AI to teach foreign languages, as did participation skills and knowledge inquiry. Interestingly, researchers also found that AI helped children to learn creativity, emotional control, collaborative inquiry, literacy skills, and computational thinking.

This could be because AI is designed to personalise everything, even learning, and can instantly evaluate each child’s learning needs and cognitive state age-appropriately.

Limitations

As a tool, AI is great. However, as a creative producer, AI is still lacking. Some apps claim to be able to “write” new songs, but much like the “uncanny valley” of AI art, books and film, there is often something that feels not quite right. But in respect to teaching foundational concepts of music, AI could become the teacher’s most effective and accessible resource. So in honour of AI, I have put together a few a space-themed songs to use this month!

Aiken Drum

There was a man lived in the moon

Lived in the moon, lived in the moon

There was a man lived in the moon

And his name was Aiken Drum

And he played upon a ladle

A ladle, a ladle

And he played upon a ladle

And his name was Aiken Drum

And his coat was made of … (Samsung phones, Samsung phones, Samsung phones

And his coat was made of Samsung phones and his name was Aiken Drum)

And his shoes were made of … (hotdog buns, hotdog buns, hotbuns

And his shoes were made of hotdog buns and his name was Aiken Drum)

And his hat was made of … (silver coins, silver coins, silver coins

And his hat was made of silver coins and his name was Aiken Drum)

This lovely little song about the “man in the moon” uses the word “drum” which is a perfect segue to using the musical instrument. One idea is to have half the group of children sitting in a circle (like the planet earth) playing drums, while the other half move around the earth together in a huddle, like the moon going around the earth. This not only begins to teach them about teamwork, but also musical beat, planetary motion and co-operation. The verses could use creative ideas depending on the nursery theme – food, tech, toys, even Chinese New Year!

Rocket Ship

Rocket ship, rocket ship

Will you take me on a trip

I won’t cry and I won’t shout

If your engine knocks me out!

This version is a take on the classic Kodály song, Apple Tree. In preschool, as children begin to learn about sharing and turn taking, they sit in a circle and pass an object around, in this case, a “rocket”. Before children recognise the beat they feel/hear, they step, clap and pass toys randomly – it becomes a musical game when they recognise and respond to the beat. This is done by the teacher demonstrating how quickly to pass the rocket – either by stepping in time, clapping or identifying the syllable to pass on:

Rocket ship, Rocket ship, will you take me on a trip …

Twinkle Twinkle

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.