Music, dance and movement | The Interest Forest (2024)

Music is a form of art and self-expression. In early childhood education, music and movement are intertwined. Children can listen and dance to music. They can also make their own music, using instruments or just their bodies. Music can be structured or spontaneous, a solo experience, or a group collaboration.

EYLF learning outcomes

The Early Years Learning Framework encourages curiosity, imagination and creativity (4.1), which can be achieved through music and dance. When children perform musically they are expressing ideas and making meaning using a range of media (5.3). Music and dance help children become strong in their emotional (3.1) and physical wellbeing (3.2).

Learning experiences

It's okay if you don't feel musical yourself. There are endless ideas for childcare music experiences that don't require specialist knowledge. Educators can teach children basic music and dance theory by providing the following learning experiences:

Make melodies

• Teach children to sing a diverse range of songs with both simple and complex melodies, not just children's songs and nursery rhymes.
• Provide children with melodic instruments, like xylophones and keyboards. An educator can play a very simple melody (make one up!) and ask a child to copy.

Practice pitch

• Listen to and sing songs that have dramatic pitch changes.
• Ask children to sing a "low" note and then sing a high "note". Now ask them to find similar notes on a xylophone.
• Download a tuning app, even if you don't have instruments to tune. Children can play with it and practice singing or making sounds at different pitches.
• Play a game. When an educator plays high notes children walk on their tiptoes. When they play low notes children crawl on the ground.
• Listen to bass sounds and sing along to A Chicken is Not a Fruit by Bunny Racket.

Collaborate through harmonies

• Sing songs and dance together in small and large groups. When children dance together in groups, encourage them to interact with each other by holding or clapping hands, or circling around another person.
• Play choir music and explain how the harmonies are made.Listen to One Voice Children's choir sing a cover of Diamonds.
• Encourage children to play two notes at the same time, on a xylophone or keyboard. Do they sound good together?

Feel the rhythm

• Clap, stomp, tap, shake and bang along to various styles of music, not just children's songs. Rhythm instruments include shakers, tambourines, drums and tap sticks. Children can even use their bodies to play rhythms.
• An educator can play a simple rhythm and ask children to copy it.
• Use tap sticks (clave) to play along with Clicking the Clave by Musical Muscles and clap along to Clap Your Hands by They Might Be Giants.

Play with timbre

• Experiment with a variety of instruments to understand how they have different sounds or timbres.
• Turn objects within your environment into instruments (e.g. bang on a drain pipe, scrape on cardboard with your fingers, and tap on the ground with a fork). What sounds can they make?
• Experiment with voice. What sounds can you make?

Explore dynamics

• Listen to, sing or play songs with dramatic and or sudden changes in volume and intensity.
• Give children time and space to be incredibly loud, and also time and space to be quiet, relaxed and still.
• Encourage children to change their body movements according to the energy of the music. What kind of music makes you want to jump and shout? What music makes you want to float, fly, or crawl into a ball.
• Listen to Crescendo by Musical Muscles and I Like Peace, I Like Quiet from Play School.

Learn about musical texture

• Encourage children to sing and or play songs they have imagined themselves. They can also do the same in a small group of friends.
• Suggest that children play two instruments at once, or play along with a friend who has a different instrument.
• Listen to a capella music that features vocals but no instruments. WatchPentatonix on Sesame Street.

Use form and structure

• Sing songs with repetitive or predictable structures.
• Sing echo songs where an educator sings a line and children repeat it. Sing the popular children's echo song Down By the Bay.
• Sing simple songs that have verses and choruses.
• Learn songs that include repetitive actions or dance moves.
• Read spoken stories that break into song, like Pete the Cat: I love my white shoes.

Change the tempo

• Listen to, play, and dance to music of different speeds, including songs that change suddenly between fast and slow.
• Download a metronome app to explore different tempos.
• An educator or child plays music on an instrument but frequently changes the tempo. Children dance to the music, responding to the changes with their bodies.

Listen to tonal sounds

• Play music from a variety of cultures, not just Western culture.
• Listen to music with different tones, humour and emotions. It is okay to play sad songs for children, they can be beautiful! How do you express different emotions using your body?
• Laugh alongtoCrocodile by Musical Muscles.
• Listen to the soft and sad sounds of Some Days are Harder Days by Rabbit Island and the cover of Puff the Magic Dragon by Broken Social Scene.

Move your body!

• Encourage children to express genuine emotions through dance and movement.
• Describe the ways children move their bodies: "I love how you are stomping your feet like an elephant, you are lifting your knees high!"
• Suggest movements: "Pretend you are a butterfly. Flap your arms like they are wings."
• Build obstacle courses and use exercise equipment (e.g. yoga balls, tunnels, hoops) that provoke children to move in different ways.

Explore your space

• Children dance to music and an educator gives action commands: slide sideways, go backwards, change directions, crawl, reach up high, curl in a ball, do star jumps.
• Provide a variety of spaces for children to dance. Use big open spaces like a nearby football oval, push tables back to make more room, and even dance in tiny spaces. Can you dance while sitting in a cardboard box?

Play with costumes and props

Provide costumes and props for dance, theatre and movement:

Balloons, balls, bed sheets, boas, boxes, capes, chairs, cushions, face paint, fans, peaco*ck feathers, hats, hula hoops, instruments, jewellery, masks, mirrors, parachutes, ribbons, rope, sarongs, scarves, sticks, torches, and wigs.

Be inspired by Segni Mossi:

• Make visual art while dancing with paint or drawing while you dance.
• Use a large sheet of paper as a prop for dancing. How many different ways can you move with it
• Dance with a tail. How does it change your body movements?

Events

30th April is International Jazz Day

Resources

Picture books

• Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees
• Josephine Wants To Dance by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley

Music

Listen to quality music:

• on a child's radio station: ABC Kids Listen
• on the ABC Kids YouTube channel
• by celebrity musicians from Sesame Street
• by fun children's artists: Caspar Babypants and Regurgitator's Pogogo Show
• by quiet and gentle children's artists: Elizabeth Mitchell, Renee and Jeremy and Frances England.

Justine Clarke:

• I Like to Sing
• Dancing Pants
• Dancing Face

The Wiggles:

• I am a Fine Musician
• Say the Dance, Do the Dance
• Dance with Emma
• Dance Party Songs
• Do the Twist