Sing, Say, Move and Play

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Sing, Say, Move and Play: Music from Around the World for Teaching Young Children's Musical-Cultural-Cognitive Understandings

Music is central to young children's lives. Every day, children sing songs, say rhymes and chants, move to music, and play instruments and games — alone, together with others, and as guided by educators. As competent musicians, children reproduce songs and rhymes they have heard before, put their own spin on old favourites and compose new ones. Despite these rich and often complex childhood musical practices, music teaching in early childhood classrooms is often valued as "fun" but not gainful in the way of cognitive understanding (when in fact music is an enjoyable learning pathway). This view ultimately sells children short because they make a plenty of music. Children need attentive educators to support their development as young people who think, express, and feel. This online workshop will explore the six fundamental musical concepts of beat, rhythm, pitch tempo, dynamics, and tone colour, from an experiential perspective, and examine how teachers can scaffold children's multimodal understanding of their music-making in a playful environment. Using songs, rhymes, and games from around the world, participants will be offered a child-centred, constructivist framework within which to support children's musical play and scaffold their developing understanding. This will enable children to take greater conscious control of their own music-making and future musical endeavours.