When was the last time you put some music on and sang and danced with your child?
As adults we sometimes take music and movement for granted. Sure, we know it can lift a mood and be a good way to incorporate more movement into our busy routines, but for children, incorporating music and movement into their routines can have a profound positive influence on their early development.
Music can get your children moving and thinking and inspires creativity. Incorporating singing encourages the expression of language, and many songs, particularly nursery rhymes, offer a different set of vocabulary to that which we use in everyday speech around our children. This means children are going to be exposed to a wider variety of words that can enrich their vocabulary skills.
At Wonderschool, the children really get a lot out of The Wiggles. When we turn the music on, the children begin to laugh, clap and dance around the room. One of their favourites is Rock a bye your bear, which has them excitedly clapping hands, bowing, spinning around and pretending to be asleep. Another favourite is Toot, Toot Chugga, Chugga Big Red Car, which often results in dancing and the children praising themselves and their peers by clapping their hands and saying “yay”.
In the song Do the Monkey the children mimic the actions of the educators smiling and laughing through the song, demonstrating that the children are very receptive to action songs.
One concept in our curriculum is ‘Develop and Explore Language’, where we provide the children with the opportunity to explore this concept through playing music, singing songs, reading books and encouraging them to verbalise their needs. The children have also been incorporating coloured scarves in their movements, twirling them around and throwing them in the air, watching them fall softly and slowly to the ground. In doing this, the children’s play and learning is reflective of our third enquiry on the curriculum; ‘Sensory, fine and gross motor development’, as the children are beginning to develop spatial awareness and developing their fine and gross motor skills through grabbing, catching and picking up the scarf.
Why not try out one of the new songs and action we have been learning with your children? Try The Wiggly Worm and some action ideas.
I went to a wiggly worm shop (using pointer finger as worm)
To buy a wiggly worm (wiggle finger)
I put him in a brown paper bag and listened to him squirm (hold opposite palm out and put worm on palm and close fingers around it)
He went wiggle wiggle (wiggle arms and body)
Cha cha cha (open and close hands)
wiggle wiggle wiggle (wiggle arms and body)
Cha cha cha (open and close hands)
Wiggle (wiggle arms and body)
Cha (open and close hands)
Wiggle (wiggle arms and body)
Cha (open and close hands)
wiggle wiggle wiggle (wiggle arms and body)
Cha cha cha (open and close hands)