Essential Resources: Music - Pitch perfect

Music can have a positive and powerful impact on a child’s development. By incorporating short familiar songs, nursery rhymes and musical instruments into daily provision, children will learn new vocabulary, develop listening skills and be able to communicate with others, whether or not they are verbal.

Practitioners can help nurture children’s innate joy for music by providing them with a selection of well-chosen instruments and plenty of opportunities to communicate through song.

THE POWER OF VOICE

Music in the EYFS goes beyond the use of instruments. Songs and nursery rhymes are used by practitioners on a daily basis to punctuate daily routines, capture attention and communicate.

Alexia Quin, director of the charity Music as Therapy International, which runs the Interactive Music-Making Course in partnership with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, says, ‘Singing can be hugely motivating for young children. Incorporating it into daily routines can help focus and engage children, as well as promote the development of skills such as language, turn-taking and listening.

‘Try taking a familiar song and changing the words to accompany a daily task. For example, “Time to go outside, line up by the door; Find your coat and line up by the door”, to the tune of “Row row row your boat”.’

Katie Neilson, a freelance course leader for the Voices Foundation and author of the Inside Music: Early Yearshandbook, trains teachers in early years settings and primary schools to teach music with confidence.

She says, ‘The work I do helps practitioners to put singing first. Stop and listen for a minute and you will hear children creating sounds with their voices and with objects, creating vocal sound effects for actions and playing around with phrases from songs they know. The way adults speak to and engage with young children is musical too: the rise and fall of our speech, the patting or rocking adults use to soothe. When adults use music in a nursery setting, they are speaking in the children’s language.’

STRUCTURED MUSIC

Finding the time to lead structured musical activities in a busy nursery setting is often not an easy task. Buy-in from management is key, as is the co-operation of colleagues who will need to supervise children who are not taking part in the small, adult-led session.

In terms of meeting targeted aims for individual children, ‘nothing beats’ small, group-led musical activities, Ms Quin states.

However, when it comes to universal provision, where some children are verbal and some not, standard ‘hello’ or greeting songs will enrich musical opportunities.

Here are a few benefits of structured sessions:

• They promote non-verbal communication – using a drum, for example, practitioners can mirror the beats that a child makes to build a ‘conversation’.
• Self-regulation – children learn to turn-take and the consistency helps them manage emotions.
• Social motivation and participation – children are more likely to join in and learn from their peers.
  
  

MUSIC STATIONS

A music table or station can be a great way to make instruments accessible as part of free exploration. But there are drawbacks: beaters often get separated from instruments, making them useless. Also, it can be noisy and disruptive.

Ms Quin says, ‘A child’s free exploration of self-expression can look and sound like a barrage of meaningless noise.’

Ultimately, the reason for including a music table depends on why you are introducing music. ‘If you hope your musical instruments will help children’s developmental or social skills, you may benefit from a more structured approach to music-making. The most amazing drum in the world won’t magically provide a meaningful interactive experience for a young child. It’s how you introduce the instrument, how you scaffold the child’s engagement with it and how you respond to the child’s musical play that is transformational,’ explains Ms Quin.

Continuous provision

When considering what instruments to include in your continuous provision, variety and quality are key, says Ms Quin.

‘Quality is important not only for durability, but to strengthen the experience of playing. Good-quality instruments give a fuller, more satisfying experience when a child handles them and the sounds they produce are richer, more resonant and ultimately more motivating.’

Here are some handy pointers:

• Look for instruments that produce a variety of sounds. Include egg shakers, claves, bells, drums, maracas and huiros for scraping sounds.
• Consider separating them into different boxes according to the material they are made from.
• Separate the group-playing instruments – for example, the eggs, claves and bells – from the bespoke sound–makers: the agogos, calabash and cabasas.
• Think about the variety of the experiences that children will have playing them: striking, shaking or hitting them with their hands.

Here are some examples of resources to include in your continuous provision:

• Don’t forget to include instruments from different cultures. Cosy’s An African Adventure set, £109.99, features percussion instruments, a mask, Kente cloth and suggested card ideas.
• Outdoors, attach recycled junk music instruments to Cosy’s Junk Music Walls Trio, £155.99. Metal Bin Lids, £9.99, are ideal for creating an outdoor orchestra. Or try the upcycled Group Drums, £45.99. Use the Columbia Market Store, £275, as an accessible music shed, all from Cosy.
• Early Excellence’s Music Resource Collection, £230, will enable children to investigate cause and effect. It contains items that can also be bought separately. For example, Wrist Bells, £11.95; Scrapers, £12.95; Wooden Hand Drum, £10; Painted Rainsticks, £22.95; and Thumb Piano, £11.50.
• For group sessions with younger children, try the Nursery Percussion Starter Set, £72.99; the Little Hands Percussion Kit, £49.99; or the Lollipop Hand Drum, 10pk, £99.99 – all from Hope Education.
• TTS’s KS1 Percussion Instrument Set, 45pk, £154.95, contains quality tuned and untuned instruments.
• Children love to listen to sounds of the sea. Try the Remo ET-0212-10 Ocean Drum, £68, from Amazon.
• Toddlers love rain-makers. Try Plan Toys Rain Maker, £19.96, from www.banipur.co.uk.
  
  

CASE STUDY: Central Primary School, Watford, Hertfordshire

Music is offered in a variety of ways at Central Primary School. Children in nursery receive 20 minutes of formal music lessons a week. During these sessions, nursery teacher Anka Pop focuses on musical skills such as pitch, beat and rhythm.

She says, ‘Rather than naming the skills, we prefer the children to get a feel of these skills through movement games and short familiar songs. Each morning, children are welcomed and dismissed using songs that we received through Katie Neilson at the Voices Foundation. During these transitions, I find that songs not only help children with SEN and EAL familiarise with school routines, but they also bring a joyous atmosphere to the class.

‘Children from all cultures attend the settings, and our instruments reflect this. We have wooden blocks, castanets, tambourines, drums and maracas. The instruments are organised into categories such as ‘tuned’, which can sound different notes, like the xylophone, timpani or piano; and ‘untuned’ with no definite pitch, like the bass drum, cymbals or castanets.

‘For adult-led sessions, we have instruments for each child, such as claves, castanets and shakers. For child-initiated learning, children have access to instruments that can be found in a wicker basket indoors and outdoors.

‘We teach many skills through music, and they are not all musical: turn-taking, communication and language, repetition and rhyme, self-confidence, days of the week, daily routines and even self-care.’

Further information

• Inside Music: Early Years handbook, https://bit.ly/3ztcaYb
• Interactive Music-Making, https://bit.ly/35pfSEw
• Katie Neilson Music: Resources, https://bit.ly/3gyXNZG
• The Voices Foundation, https://www.voices.org.uk