How to use music with your child

How to get started

If music is not something you are particularly comfortable with (and many are happy to listen, but less happy to participate!) rest assured your child will love whatever you do. They will be your least harsh critic so try and enjoy it too!

You do not have to be a musician, a good singer or an expert to develop your child’s musical ability. But you do need to give your child the opportunity to experience music, sounds and songs so they can develop the skills and tools to participate in a meaningful way themselves.

The songs we provide in the ‘Learning through music’ resource are just a starting point! Music with your child can include CDs or streamed music, YouTube videos, nursery rhyme books, singing, noisy instruments and a lot of fun! Explore lots of different ways to enjoy music together.

It is also an excellent way for the family to relax together, for any siblings to join in and simply for you to enjoy being together.

Focusing on different aspects of listening and language through music

Below we provide some different areas of your child’s listening and language skills that you can encourage through music, along with some examples and reasons for carrying out each activity. These activities are for all ages, so some might be a bit young for your child, and some might seem a bit old. However, we have left them all in so that you can think of ways to enjoy music as a family (including brothers and sisters).

Rhythm

We all speak rhythmically. Without any rhythm, our speech would be dull and monotonous.

You can encourage rhythm in your child’s language by:

• beating the syllables of your child’s own name/family names on a drum
• clapping along to music with a strong beat
• copying rhythmic patterns with clapping, tapping, pots/lids/spoons
• patting knees, shaking arms, clapping hands, rock from side to side, walk, run – or even gallop like a horse…

Sound awareness/auditory training

Actively listening to the presence and absence of sound encourages good listening skills. You can promote your child’s sound awareness by:

• jumping from one mat to another on a given signal (shaker, drum, clap, ‘go’)
• playing musical bumps (on/off of music) – move to music – stop when music stops
• placing a play-brick or toy in a bucket on a given signal (shaker, drum, clap, ‘go’)
• exploring household sounds – such as switching the vacuum cleaner on and off

Breath control

Helping your child improve their breath control will help your child to develop a strong voice, which will improve voice quality. You can improve your child’s breath control through:

• blowing bubbles
• playing with party blowers
• using any form of ‘blowing’ instrument – toy trumpet, recorder, horn, etc – practice copying rhythms such as continuous and abrupt

Rhyming words – traditional nursery rhymes

There are many traditional nursery songs with lovely rhyming words which are fun to sing and also part of natural childhood.

Make a picture book with a picture along with a song title on each page to represent traditional nursery songs so your child can choose a song – you can build this up over time as your child learns new songs.

Use props/pictures/actions to give additional clues about the language that goes with the song – for example:

• toy bus – Wheels on the Bus
• toy sheep – Baa-Baa Black Sheep
• star – Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star
• toy spider – Incy-Wincy Spider

Movement and sound discrimination

You can use songs, music and nursery rhymes to explore differences in sound and to improve gross motor skills and co-ordination. You can encourage movement and sound discrimination by:

• singing action songs – e.g. the Hokey-Cokey, Ring-a-Ring-of-Roses
• moving to sound – e.g. fast to fast sound/music; slow to slow sound/music; big movements for loud sound/music and little movements to soft sound/music
• making movements appropriate to the sounds: for example, jumping like a frog to abrupt sound (e.g. a horn) and slithering like a snake to a continuous sound (e.g. a shaker)

Exploring and ‘feeling’ sound with instruments

There are lots of lovely and easy-to-find or easy-to-make “instruments” you can use. You and your child can experiment with these instruments to ‘feel’ the sound of drums and chimes and explore pitch and rhythm. For example, you can:

• play along to taped music and stop when music stops
• explore new instruments – how is the sound made – plucking, shaking, banging, etc
• discover ways of making sound with household objects – such as pots and bans or empty plastic food containers/bottles
• make musical instruments – plastic bottles made into shakers with different things inside to make different sounds – rice, pasta, beans, etc

Building literacy through music

Use elements of singing and music (pitch, rhythm, speed, loudness, etc) when reading books with your child (and any siblings):

• Billy Goats Gruff – big, medium, small – loud, medium, quiet
• Goldilocks and the Three Bears – low pitch, medium pitch, high pitch/big, medium, small/loud, medium, quiet
• The Three Pigs – rhythm (I’ll huff, and I’ll puff and I’ll blooooow your house down)
• The Gingerbread Man – rhythm (run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man)
• Jack and the Beanstalk – pitch moving up; pitch moving down; loud/quiet; fast/slow

What are we hoping to see?

Depending on your child’s age and stage of development, their reaction to music and songs will usually proceed along the following lines:

• To begin with, your child will watch you and the actions that you make.
• After a while they should start to copy a few of the actions or anticipate the next parts of the song.
• Once your child is more familiar with the song they might use a few of those actions to tell you which song they want to sing.
• Next, your child might use their voice to ‘sing along’, not using words, but displaying some rhythm and/or pitch.
• Later you might hear your child using a few single words, such as “star” for Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star, or “baa” for Baa-Baa Black Sheep.
• And, in the longer term, your child might even try to fill in words and lines (or even have a go at singing the whole song or nursery rhyme).