More Activity Ideas
- Sing, dance, and listen to music with your child throughout the day to encourage music as a valuable part of everyday life. This will also help encourage his natural inclination to sing, move, and play with sound.
- Play a game of freeze dance. Play an upbeat song and move along to the music with your child. Stop the music and “freeze” in place. See who freezes in the most interesting position! Next, play a slow song and notice how you are both moving differently. Invite family members to join in.
- Clap out your child’s favorite nursery rhyme or song. See if she can name the rhyme/song.
- Children love making silly songs. Try setting his favorite stories to music.
- Make instruments from everyday objects, such as water bottle rice shakers, and aluminum pie plate drums. Then play along with a favorite song or piece of music.
- Create new rhyming music. Work together to replace the words in favorite nursery rhymes. For example, “Twinkle, twinkle little light. How you sparkle in the night.”
- Play “Simon Says Sing” with your child. Use song to help your child talk about feelings and emotions; say, Simon says, “Sing a funny song.” Sing and dance to show the emotion. Take turns being Simon.
- Have fun building your child’s math and science skills as you make music together with your own bodies (sing, whistle, hum, tap, cluck, snap, etc.) Take turns making and repeating music patterns.
- Sing a familiar song together. Sing it again and change the lyrics/tune to create a new song.
- Play two types of music as your child paints or draws to the music, for example, jazz/lullaby or tango/waltz. Compare the drawings and relate each one to the music that was playing. Point out the different colors used, lines drawn, big strokes vs. small strokes, etc.