Setting up for a successful music session for preschoolers helps to prepare for a fantastic time. Preschoolers are quick and clued up, rarely miss a trick, and get straight into things that are left alone.
Our musical aim with preschoolers is to help children contribute to the development of each activity. This helps them to take ownership of their own learning, making it a personal and important experience that they continue to remember and develop on their own. In addition to their contribution, we also aim to help them in learning to appreciate the aesthetic value of music. Through all of this we aim to help them to reach their full potential both inside and outside of the session.
Each music session can be a full learning experience by segmenting multiple activities. By allowing each mini-activity to last no longer than 5 minutes, you have 45 solid minutes of fun – and by following children’s interests, this could even be lengthened to an hour of focussed and engaging fun! Different components involve:
- Pretend play by acting out characters, emotions, reactions and activities
- Singing and vocal exploration by imitating animals, machines and more
- Movement by learning direction, exercising muscles and uncovering hidden talents
- Explore instruments by playing them in different ways, imaginatively AND respectfully
- Creating by singing new songs, new topics, new ways
- Active and passive music listening by responding to musical cues as well as listening out for specific instrument sounds
- Sharing time by taking turns, responding to others with personal thoughts and feelings
- Family activities by creating opportunities for parents to get involved with singing and playing together (first thing in the morning can work surprisingly well!)
Children this age have already developed a basic understanding on how the world works, and have very different needs to younger children. As an educator, it is important to:
- Balance acknowledgement of actions with moving on to the next activity
- Recognise the benefits of turn-taking and managing impatience
- Prepare parents for a change in behaviour when parents become involved
- Use children’s development traits effectively, including their ability to be easily diverted, praising the attention they pay, and planning sharing time carefully
- Balance movement and rest considerately, alternating activity with focussed time – studies show that activity before focussed time increases the level of information retained
- Work with child interests, allowing the session to adapt flexibly with the child.
This means that the kind of educator who will be successful at children’s music delivery will:
- Focus on each child
- Create an emotionally safe environment
- Allow their demeanour to show student value
- Give clear and simple direction
- Be thoroughly familiar to the children
- Use home media to enhance learning of songs and rhymes
- Be sensitive to children’s needs
- Create opportunities for children to develop their interests, potentially bringing materials back to the group
Songs that can work towards these have an increasing level of complexity. The best way to teach them is to be thoroughly familiar with both the song and the game – a great opportunity to have a laugh with the staff!
Once A Man
Once a man fell in a well
Splish, splash, splosh it sounded
If he hadn’t fallen in
He would not have drownded
This song develops clapping skills, movement skills, automation, awareness of space … all while standing in a circle facing each other. Forming two circles, children start by facing each other. Clap knees, clap hands, clap against each other twice – for each of the first three lines. On the last line, depending on the group, either the inner circle moves left, or the outer circle moves left. Alternatively, the pair can change position. The original dance involves changing position with the outside partner moving left, which can be learnt progressively.
Pumpkin, Pumpkin
Pumpkin, pumpkin
Round and fat
Turns into a jack o’ lantern
Just like that
This very seasonally-appropriate song, coming up to Halloween! Singing the first line together while standing in a circle, demonstrate “round and fat” with your arms outstretched. On the third line, everyone turns around slowly, until the last line, when you pull a scary face!
This song is an excellent example of singing a (an anhemitonic) pentatonic scale. This means that the notes are far apart enough to be sung clearly, and songs like this are often easy to learn, easy to sing!
There Was A Jolly Miller
There was a jolly miller
And he lived by himself
When the wheel went round he
Made his wealth
With one hand in his pocket
And the other in his bag
When the wheel went round
He made his grab
This lovely circle dance involves the group walking around in a circle with one “miller” in the centre. They walk around the middle until the last line, when they “grab” one on the outside … who becomes the new “miller”!
This is another song based on the pentatonic notes, making it easy to learn and easy to sing.
Preparation is so key to success. It allows us to be more aware of the needs and interests of the children, and change plans in a split second, making sessions even more memorable. This could include “fishing” for balls in the summer paddling pool, singing about weather changes outside using the falling snow in the winter, spontaneously creating a careful “nature walk” through a flower bed while singing about insects, or imaginatively using chairs and fabric to create a pirate ship singing “Drunken sailor”.
And it is always useful to bear in mind that with children this age, the most important part is how you make them feel, how heard they feel, how much time they feel they have had with you. These are the memories, the treasures that will live with them, inspire them, and motivate them to be the best that they can be. And the bonus – you get to do it using music.