- Read Wolf (2016) Why Making Music Matters: Singing, Playing, Moving and Sharing in the Early Years.
- Review Music in the Early Childhood Classroom powerpoint
- Watch this video of Drum Girl, Dream Girl with musical accompaniment by a fourth grade class:
This week you will create a music activity for one sub-topic of your thematic curriculum unit. Your music activity should involve children actively creating music: singing, playing instruments, etc. Use the readings and video this week as your guidelines.
Use the Music Activity Plan template and post your assignment here.
ECE 211 Music Activity Plan
Your theme and sub-theme:
Food
What I eat/what friends in my class eat
Describe your activity:
The class I work with love the Apples and Bananas song, and that works for my food theme
What materials will you need for this activity? Provide a detailed list. Remember the materials you will need to introduce the activity (e.g., book) and everything you will need to implement the learning activity, including set-up and clean-up.
We don’t have musical instruments in our class yet, so we utilized blocks as claves. While the blocks were being passed out, we made sure that our blocks were “sleeping” until everyone had a set and were ready to create a rhythm as a group.
Describe how you will introduce the activity and what the children will do. Describe the experience step by step.
Food is not the theme currently in my room, so I used it after snack time as an opportunity to trickle into a food discussion. We talked about the type of snacks we have in the room and the kid’s names lots of their favorites, which included apples and bananas
What will children learn from your activity? Explain how it supports each of the developmental domains. Be specific. (i.e. fine motor skills through cutting, social and emotional learning, knowledge about particular topics)
The kids were learning how to follow a beat, which we typically do with clapping, stomping our feet, or tapping our legs. This was the first time they were given an object to implement that skill with. The apple and bananas song goes through the vowels and sounds silly, so it’s a fun way for them to hear and learn to different sounds letters make.
Your theme and sub-theme:
Transportation and How I get to school
Describe your activity:
The class could sing the wheels on the bus, there’s also a song called five little airplanes like five little monkeys that could be a fun alternative
What materials will you need for this activity? Provide a detailed list. Remember the materials you will need to introduce the activity (e.g., book) and everything you will need to implement the learning activity, including set-up and clean-up.
The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
Transportation in My Neighborhood by Shelly Lyons
I would provide like maracas or shakers so the children can make noise as we sing along but mostly make noise with our mouths to emulate different sounds of transport
Describe how you will introduce the activity and what the children will do. Describe the experience step by step.
After reading one of the books on transportation, I would ask the children to think about what each vehicle sounds like, and ask if they can tell me as many as they know. Then I would sing a song with them about one type of transport, while also having the classroom set up with centers to do with transportation like blocks or cars so they can continue playing and thinking about what we are doing.
What will children learn from your activity? Explain how it supports each of the developmental domains. Be specific. (i.e. fine motor skills through cutting, social and emotional learning, knowledge about particular topics)
Children will continue to work on types of transportation at different centers. Fine motor skills will be developed as they play with building blocks and try to put pieces together to form what they build. I would also have a craft center so they could draw a type of transport that will also develop the same skill. Social and emotional will be developed as I form the whole classroom around this topic, the kids will share ideas with each other and continue expanding on what they know. Without even starting this topic, the children will know at least one way they get to school and from there we will continue expanding what they know.
Jonette Julien
ECE 211 Music Activity Plan
Oct 24, 2021
Your theme and sub-theme:
Beautiful sounds of nature
Rhythm growing fun
Describe your activity:
Today I am going to introduce the class to the beautiful world of color. All those trees, plants and flowers all make up the beauty of this world. We have big plants, little plants, trees big and small, some little and some tall. As we get ready to engage in this activity we are going to make our own sounds with our instruments that we made in class. There are instruments in front of each of you, when I start the video and give the instructions you are going to pick up your instruments and make any beat you like, because I know together we would make wonderful rhythms and we would help our plants, and flowers to grow. Remember as always to have FUN EVERYONE.
What materials will you need for this activity? Provide a detailed list. Remember the materials you will need to introduce the activity (e.g., book) and everything you will need to implement the learning activity, including set-up and clean-up.
Story book Maple by Lori Nichols
Home made drums
Home made maracas
Home made wooden block
Describe how you will introduce the activity and what the children will do. Describe the experience step by step.
Okay boys and girls we are going to make sounds for our plants that we planted. We are going to make music to help them grow. Remember in the story book Maple, she sang to the trees. We are going to do the same thing but through music.
Pick up instruments
Play a rhythm
Have fun as we March around in a circle
What will children learn from your activity? Explain how it supports each of the developmental domains. Be specific. (i.e. fine motor skills through cutting, social and emotional learning, knowledge about particular topics)
Making music and marching would allow the children to work on their fine motor skills. They would also be working on their sensory skills as they listen to one another and start to make a rhythm. I believe with the book and the activity that the children would know and see that plants and trees are important to us, and how we should treat them and take care of them.
Nana Kvaratskhelia
ECE 211
Professor Reich-Shapiro
October 22nd, 2021
Music activity plan
Your theme and sub-theme:
Identity: Myself
Describe your activity:
Learning the body parts through music. Singing the song “Me!”. This is a practical example that I am taking from my own experience with pre-K children, to instill them basics of the human body.
The children are standing in a circle, around the teacher who hits rhythm of the song either by clapping or feet, making the children to follow the beats and be ready to sing after him/her by putting attention to the lyrics that are body parts: “This is my head, these are my eyes” etc. The teacher and young students repeat the actions together.
What materials will you need for this activity? Provide a detailed list. Remember the materials you will need to introduce the activity (e.g., book) and everything you will need to implement the learning activity, including set-up and clean-up.
– Play-mat: To make children sit/stand comfortably
– Bluetooth speaker and a music player with free access music interactive Apps.
– Coloring book: to show parts of the body; Head, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, back, legs, elbows.
– Prefabricated puzzles to improve children’s participation in the activity.
Describe how you will introduce the activity and what the children will do. Describe the experience step by step.
I will introduce first the theme with open-end questions, to activate children’s curiosity and encourage them to join and form a circle. First, by turning on the music ahead of time and allowing them to dance around and play for a few minutes as a warmup. Then I bring their attention to silence and form the circle, explain them the activity in detail with learning tips, the song topic, that we will practice several times before we would be all able to sing together in cohesion for a prime time. After turning on the background music, the teacher’s assistant will join me with the book, and we start singing. I would include the puzzle for the first try to enhance children’s focus.