How Can Music Help in the Prime Areas of Learning?

Music can help in all 7 Areas of Learning.  In this blog, I'm going to go through how you could use music to help with the Prime Areas of Learning: Communication and Language, Physical Development, and Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

Using Songs/Rhymes to help with Communication and Language

Why?

Opportunity for children to:

• Listen to rhythmic patterns
• Recap words
• Be introduced to new words
• Help them understand words
• Say simple sentences...  plus much more

What can you do to help?

Include in your repertoire simple, repetitive and interactive songs and rhymes

• Simple: not too many different words and if it is a song, a tune that is easy to sing.
• Repetitive: a song/rhyme that has repeated words. 
• Interactive: there are actions or you use a prop that the children interact with.

Sing without an accompaniment. This enables you to sing at a pitch and speed suitable for your children.

Music to help with Physical Development

Why?

Opportunity for children to:

• Manipulate an object, instruments, props...
• Move in different ways
• Explore and choose how to move
• Move the whole body
• Awareness of own space and that of others... plus much more

What can you do to help?

Include in your music time a variety of activities: songs/rhymes, instrument, body percussion and listening to music.

The physical element being:

• songs/rhymes: actions and movements to go along with these
• instruments: handling and manipulating instruments in different ways to make different sounds
• body percussion: clapping, tapping, stamping...
• listening to music: choose different genres of music which the children can move to in different ways.

Music to help with Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Why?

Opportunity for children to:

• Work together as a group
• Try new ideas
• Build confidence
• Get to know others
• Taking turns... plus much more

What can you do to help?

Include in your music time a variety of activities: songs/rhymes, instrument, body percussion and listening to music.

A few examples might be:

• songs/rhymes: suggesting a song to sing
• Instruments: sharing and taking turns
• body percussion: stamping feet to the pulse as they march around as a group
• listening to music: moving a prop as a group: e.g. parachute

If you would like to learn how you can use music as a tool to help in all areas of learning, please take a look at my online training 'Music and the 7 Areas of Learning: https://musicalabc.simplero.com/music-and-the-7-areas-of-learning

Happy music making!