Music and Movement

Music and Movement

Many important physical, social, cognitive, and language skills are learned and practiced in the music and movement area. Music brings out many emotions in children; when they are allowed to express those emotions through singing and dancing, they become more capable of handling them. The movement activities and dancing that occur in this area strengthen the children's gross motor skills, and playing the instruments in the area helps strengthen small motor skills. Children build cognitive skills by practicing various number skills while playing instruments or singing along to music and by thinking symbolically as they dance. The vocabulary used in many children's songs will help children build their own vocabularies, and the rhymes and alliteration found in the songs helps them build basic pre-reading skills.

Ideas for Home:

There are many ways you can incorporate music and movement into your life at home. Simply having a variety of children's music on CD/mp3 and playing it during car trips or during free time at home allows your children to experience music. Letting your children play along to the music with instruments is a great way to engage their attention. If you don't have any musical instruments at home, you can easily make some. For example, you could take two plastic containers, fill one with dried beans, and tape them together for a simple maraca.

Singing and doing fingerplays (e.g. Itsy Bitsy Spider or The Wheels on the Bus) with your children is a great way to introduce them to rhyming words. Don't worry if you don't have the most beautiful singing voice! Your children won't mind at all, and they will love spending the quality time with you. 

Getting your children up and moving is the ultimate goal of this area. Playing simple games like Duck, Duck, Goose or Hide 'n Seek are great ways to make this happen. 

Source:
Dodge, Diane T., Colker, Laura J., Heroman, Cate. (2002). The Creative Curriculum.
        Washington DC: Teaching Strategies Inc.