Music Training for Young Children: A Comparison of Early Childhood Music
Instruction Programs
Honestly, we learned together and the classroom teachers helped me figure out what to do and what was developmentally appropriate. Sessions at TMEA helped me to figure out these little learners too. I remember my first Lynn Kleiner TMEA session in 1999. She opened the door to what was possible. With my research in full swing for a literature review of early childhood music instruction programs, I've had many opportunities to look at my own teaching and reflect on how it has changed over the last seventeen years. I've also implemented some new methods into my teaching in the last couple of weeks.
Most importantly - Free play! Wow, this type-A personality, control-lover had to really take a deep breath and sit on her hands for this one to work. Over and over, I've read about the importance of free play or exploration time. Some of the articles are from the late 1990's. Others are quite recent. In a couple of the articles, I felt like I was reading about myself. One article described a teacher who implemented free play and felt "odd" because she wasn't doing anything! Yes, I felt that too. But then I began to see the amazing learning and processing going on in my classroom.
One of my favorite observations happened this week in a 3-yr-old class. After I emptied the "explore box" onto the carpet, one of my little boys took a ball and began letting it drop, using his voice to follow the ball from high to low. I had done that exercise with them the previous week and only I had had a ball. This little guy had remembered that exercise and was practicing what he had learned. Other children mimicked other activities with instruments or improvised their own music. Dramatic play happened with scarves. One of my little girls put a scarf on her head and sang about how she was a bride. Explore time was a success!
In kindergarten, I implemented explore time in centers. One station had a box of "tappers" (a drum, a woodblock, a triangle, claves, and a tone block), the second station had scarves and recorded music, the third had farm animal puppets the children had previously seen in class, and the last station had a box of age-appropriate books with nursery rhymes and songs. The children were in groups of 4-5 and spent about three minutes in each station before rotating to the next. When we were finished, I heard the children saying, "That was fun!" "Did you see what I did with the scarves?" "I got to make the horses dance!" These comments inspired conversation for the last three minutes of class. Each child told the whole group which activity had been his or her favorite and why. The responses were wonderful. The children were using musical terms to describe a lot of what they had been doing. "I kept a steady beat on the woodblock." "I made my scarf bounce with the music." "I made the puppet dance up high when I heard the high music." "I found a book about the 'Wheels on the Bus' and I know that song!" Their answers inspired the other children to think of different ways to use the tools. Center time was a success!
Yes, I felt odd not providing direct instruction, but I learned so much by observing them and asking them questions. My students were providing me with feedback about their learning through their play. I look forward to continuing "explore time" and making it a regular part of my classroom.
