Music Everyday

You’ve heard that old saying, “Music soothes the savage beast”* When it comes to music, especially singing, children are more than just soothed! Music increases a child’s language skills with rhythm and rhyme. Music pulls a group together as a community. Music helps calm children down or rev them up. Music can help with breathing and thus public speaking/oral reading. Can music make your child smarter?   Click HERE for a great website with more information.   Click HERE for a website with free classical music from many composers.

As a teacher, I’ve noticed children don’t seem to know their nursery rhymes and other early childhood songs. As Peppermint Patti I’ve tried to initiate “Patty cake” and “Eensy Weensy Spider” with little ones who look at me as if I’m insane. This makes me sad. Those classic childhood songs and fingerplays are so much fun and so important for early language development! When did parents stop teaching them to their children?

Sometimes during the school day I will play various types of music to either pep up or calm down the class. We also sing many “camp” songs together. Sometimes they’ll even teach me the songs they learned at camp over the summer! I love to learn new songs. A few years ago my student Adam taught me the Beaver Song:

Beaver 1 Beaver All let's all do the beaver call.
Beaver 2 Beaver 3 let’s all climb the beaver tree.
Beaver 4 Beaver 5 let's all do the beaver jive.
Beaver six Beaver 7 let’s all go to beaver heaven.
Beaver 8 Beaver 9 STOP!! It's Beaver time.

Singing brings us together as a community. On Fridays we always have pizza for lunch so we chant the Pizza Song:

Eat. (R)
Eat a. (R)
Eat a lotta. (R)
Eat a lotta, eat a lotta, eat a lotta pizza. (R)
No, no don’t eat the pizza! (R)
Pizza’s got a lotta hot and spicy pepperoni. (R)
Pizza’s got a lotta hot and spicy peppermoni got a lotta hot and spicy pepperoni on the top. (R)

The leader chants the line and then the group repeats (R). We start slow and each time we do it, we go faster! The students love to see how fast they can go!

Music comes in really handy.  One time when we were on a fieldtrip, we had some time to kill so I gathered all 150 third graders and led them in a sing along. It made the wait time go by so much faster. We also like to sing on the bus when we go on fieldtrips. This is sometimes thwarted by the bus driver playing CDs or some sort of Disney radio.

I can't imagine a day without music.

*FYI the actual saying is: “Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast”…from a play by William Congreve, The mourning bride, 1697. Click HERE for the internet source.

Do you have a favorite song or fingerplay you taught your child? Leave me a comment. I’d love to hear from you!