How to Raise Musical Children
Last week, I wrote about how to spend more time reading to your child. As I have mentioned previously, I feel very strongly about including lots of read-aloud time, lots of music, and lots of outdoor time in the lives of my own children and the children I teach. This writing is about how to include more music in your child’s life!
Most of us, if asked, would say that we want our children to have at least some musical talent. We want them to appreciate music and “be more musical.” We know that it is important, and if you check out the research links I’ve compiled, you’ll see that indeed it is, and why.
But how? What if you’ve never played an instrument? What if you can’t sing? What if you don’t feel like you’ve got musical talent?
Great news! It. Doesn’t. Matter. There are so many things you can do to immerse your young child in music, and these things are EASY. I am not a music teacher. I’m not a professional musician. I sing, but I’m certainly not professional-quality. I play the piano, but not super well. I play the ukulele (poorly). What I AM is a lover of music. What I DO is provide musical moments for my children in as many ways as possible in the course of our day.
Here are some of the things that I do:
The Take-a-Tune Tub! This was inspired by my lead teacher at my very first teaching job which was at an on-campus child development center at my alma mater, Penn State University. The Take-a-Tune Tub is exactly what it sounds like - a container full of paint sticks or popsicle sticks, which each have the name of a song. Color-coding helps the child who doesn’t speak yet or who can’t speak well enough to be understood. The kids can take turns pulling a tune out of the tub whenever you have a few moments.
This saves you from several things: toddlers who can’t articulate which song they want, singing the same three songs over and over again because they’re all you can think of in the moment, and kids going crazy in the lull of a transition or while waiting for something. This is an excellent tool at a morning meeting, or on your couch at home! Now that I’m not in a classroom, mine still gets pulled out on the daily, often by the kids!
The Take-a-Tune Tub doubles as a tool for teaching reading, as it adds to the “environmental print” in your house or classroom. Every time a tune gets pulled, show them the words as you read the title. As the kids reach PreK or Kindergarten age, you can really use this as a moment to sound out those words and identify familiar words and sounds. I can’t quite squash the teacher in me, so my Take-a-Tune Tub also has the months of the year song and the days of the week, and the continents, etc. Why not cram a little more content learning in there?! Otherwise, they’re fun and familiar kid songs and nursery rhymes. I add to it as I learn new songs or remember a song exists that I’ve forgotten to sing for a few months or years. Feel like you can’t sing? If this sounds intimidating, keep all the songs in your tub on your phone, and you can pull up the one requested at a moment’s notice.
Big Girl helped with the writing of this particular Take-a-Tune Tub back when she was four years old!
Snack playlist! I’ve written before about reading to my kids during snack time, and I often do…but sometimes I actually have to eat. So I created a snack playlist of popular classical songs (William Tell Overture, Flight of the Bumblebee, etc.), and I play it at the beginning of every snack time. I try to tell them what each song is called and the name of the composer every single time we hear them. They’re starting to be able to tell me who the composers are! We also talk about what instruments we hear. This is an easy way to help them develop familiarity with famous classical music. You obviously don’t HAVE to use classical songs - awesome jazz music would also be fun, or anything else you desire!
Lunch music is similar to snack music, except that I’m very careful to keep it as calm and peaceful as possible as a prelude to nap time. Sometimes I use an instrumental Disney playlist or other calm, classical music. I’m careful not to switch it up very frequently - I really love using music as a routine-setter. I liken it to Pavlov’s dogs - I condition my kids to wind down for nap by playing the same music every day before naptime.
Seasonal playlists! These are so much fun to create - I have a playlist for each season or holiday so that we have some fresh, new music that immerses us in whatever season or holiday we are currently learning about. For example, right now (it’s the end of September when I’m writing this) we are listening to a playlist that includes Vivaldi’s Four Seasons fall movement and Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September.” It’s eclectic, and the kids love it! Next month, we’ll be enjoying Emily Arrow’s, “How to Make Friends with a Ghost,” Ghostbusters, the Monster Mash…and so many others!
Books you can sing are a huge hit here with all the babies and toddlers and honestly the bigger kids love them, too. When I say books you can sing, I mean books like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Puff the Magic Dragon” and all of Raffi’s board books like “Down by the Bay”. Every single one of my babies has been more engaged by books that are sung than by any other books at a young age. Again, you can load these onto your phone if using your voice is not your jam. (Keep in mind though, that your child loves the sound of your voice and has no idea you can’t carry a tune in a bucket!)
The best part is that many board books can become books you can sing if you just make up a tune, or use a tune to another familiar kid song. I do this with “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See,” and it has been a favorite of every baby to whom I have ever had the pleasure of reading it. Sing all the books! It’s such an awesome double strategy to both expose your kids to more music, AND engage them more deeply in their books at a young age!
Singing the Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See song.
Barefoot Books Singalongs - Okay, this is less a strategy and more a product recommendation, BUT, be that as it may…they’re my absolute favorite thing, and you need them in your life. The Barefoot Books company has created a whole bunch of these “singalongs,” and you can find all the music on YouTube or with the QR code in the back of each book. Please explore these; you won’t regret it. (I do, however, hold the firm line that we don’t usually watch the youtube videos of these. Their little brains do not reap the same benefits from watching it on the screen that they do by looking at the book and hearing it. The science behind those two modes of delivery is quite different. So my firm recommendation is to play it just to listen to while they hold and look at the actual book.) Some of our favorites are “Driving My Tractor Down a Bumpy Road,” “Shape Song Swingalong,” “Five Little Mermaids,” “Over In the Meadow,” and “Up, Up, Up”...okay, fine, I love them allllll. Every single one of them! They also come with CDs, if you still have a CD player hanging around. I have just about every one of these books, and I pull them out on rainy days for a solid 30-40 minutes of quietly entertained kids. THEY LOVE THESE SO MUCH. They are super catchy, so don’t listen to them if you don’t want them stuck in your head for the next ten years. When I was pregnant with Baby B, Mr. Middle was obsessed with these singalongs, and it saved me on a daily basis. It’s such a fun and easy way to add some music and rhythm to your child’s day!
Some of the Barefoot Books singalong stories
Favorite artists! I don’t always listen to “kid” music, but when I do, it’s usually one of the following four artists. They are fun and engaging for kids and not annoying for grown ups who have to listen. Caspar Babypants is a particularly silly favorite of ours, who has some of the funniest and most creative song content. Emily Arrow has a cool ukulele (AND teaches ukulele classes on outschool - Big Girl took a class and loved it. I sat in the background totally geeking out that it was ACTUALLY EMILY ARROW ON THERE TEACHING US. Hopefully Emily didn’t notice.) Raffi is what I listened to as a young child, and his songs have definitely stood the test of time. Laurie Berkner is newer than Raffi, but extremely prolific with her high-quality and engaging children’s music. She also does a lot of online engagement, including some online concerts which can be a ton of fun for your child and you!
My Big Girl took a ukelele class from Emily Arrow!
These are just some of the everyday ways in which I engage my children and my students with music. I look for every opportunity to immerse them in music, to teach them about music, to expose them to music. I want their brains and their souls to benefit! Naturally, I also highly recommend music classes for your child. Something like Kindermusik is awesome, piano lessons as they get old enough (at least 5 or older for most kids), the violin or the ukulele…those are all incredibly valuable. But they’re not the only ways to create a musical child and have your child reap the benefits of music!
I’ll also be adding some little videos which you’ll be able to find on the music page, of me singing my Spell-the-Month songs! I have one for each month and it’s a super simple way to teach kids how to spell each month and what’s associated with each month. Be sure to check back there to learn those!
How do you “do” music with your child or your students? How do you use it to teach or incorporate it into your day? Comment below to share your tips with me and others! As always, if you like what you read or you think it could help others, please share it.