Music time for kids

Music is very big in our house, and while neither my husband or I have any real musical talent, we are trying to instill a love of music in our boys. Over the past few months, The Tiger and I have been taking a toddler music class, and I've learned a lot of great ideas for sharing music with children.

• Encourage free play with instruments- lay out a bunch of instruments (shakers, rhythm sticks, bells, drums, etc) and encourage them to play and experiment. Even if gets loud and annoying, they are learning about music and sound
• Play music and encourage them to dance to it. Play both fast and slow songs and ask them to dance along with the music- this will teach them about tempo.
• Give your child a simple instrument like a shaker and have them keep time with a piece of music.
• Encourage interactivity by playing songs that they can participate in- for example, "Ha, Ha, This-a-Way" which goes like this: "Ha ha, this-a-way, ha, ha that-a-way, ha, ha, this-a-way, all day long. Walking walking, up the street, walking walking, to the beat." You can change the verses to "crawling crawling oh so slow" or "dancing dancing away we go" and engage your child to follow along.
• Vary the music you play to include upbeat dancing songs and more mellow "listening" songs.

No matter what you do, just giving your child time to explore music will be fun and enriching!

(Side note: the classes we take are the Musikgarten curriculium and we love them!)