By Mary Munday, Head Teacher
I really love sweet music. Sometimes I don’t go (to music time), but I love to listen. Especially Mara (music and movement specialist). She’s the best musician in the whole world! —Elizabeth
Walking through the East PM classroom this year, you would hear children humming, singing, making up new songs, tapping with sticks, using unit blocks to make sounds, exploring the many instruments available in their environment and making their own with found materials. These children loved music!
Despite the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic presented, our days were filled with music. This brought not only joy and comfort, it also promoted learning. Music offers so many benefits for young children. It helps improve memory function and stimulates the areas of the brain responsible for reading, math and emotional development. And children’s experiments with rhythm, words, melody and tempo support the development of literacy skills. For these reasons and more, music played a central role in the East PM classroom.
When we reopened in the fall of 2020, singing was considered a higher-risk activity for spreading COVID-19, so we planned to reduce group singing and brainstormed how to fill the gap. The result was more chanting and less singing at story time. We also often played music and read books related to music, including a few that came with recordings of the author singing the books. Two stories that especially caught on were by John Lithgow: Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo and Marsupial Sue. The children sang each of these stories spontaneously throughout the day and requested them during our small-group snack times. They learned every word of the stories and hit each note as we paged through the books. They could keep a steady rhythm, vary their speed and volume and express emotion with their voices.
Soon, concerns over singing eased, especially with masks on, and we added more songs to our days. During this time, children were exposed to new languages through music, learning many songs in Spanish and many hand movements in sign language to accompany spoken songs. But singing wasn’t the only aspect of music we pursued. We exposed the class to a variety of genres of music, which led children to take a great interest in instruments. We talked about string, brass, woodwind, percussion and keyboard instruments, and children guessed which instruments made certain sounds. Many children practiced songs on the piano each day using a colored key music score or from their memory.
As the children became more interested in instrument-making, we provided open-ended materials such as bottle caps, craft sticks and film canisters that they could use to make their instruments. Teachers invited the children to use these instruments at story time and The Bing Band was created. Band sign-ups took place and later, children chose instruments from the classroom such as maracas, triangles, tambourines and guiros. Many times throughout the day, the children sang “The Bing Band is Coming to Town,” a song I created to a tune they already knew. The band encouraged writing as the children signed up to play, creativity as they made instruments, and collaboration as they worked with their band members.
In January, we read the story Because by Mo Willems and illustrated by Amber Ren. It is about a young girl’s musical journey to the stage. We introduced vocabulary related to the book, including “conductor,” “score,” “performer,” “orchestra,” “symphony” and “usher.” We listened to Symphony No. 8 in B Minor by Franz Schubert as we read the story. Later in the week, we made tickets and created an outdoor event venue. The children were each given a ticket with their seat number, and a child acting as usher helped them to find their seats. The Bing Band performed on a wooden platform under a tree in front of a live audience of their classmates and teachers. They joined along with the orchestra as we listened to the score throughout the story.
Music continued to be a focus in our classroom, and in the spring, we had breaking news that Mara, our music and movement specialist, was returning live, in-person to Bing! Mara had not been coming into Bing and had been offering music sessions on Zoom instead to reach all children in our nursery programs. Many children from East PM had joined Mara on Zoom, yet missed having her in the classroom. When she was able to return in person, the children greeted her with joy. In her first week back, Mara offered music each day. Children sang and played instruments while Mara strummed her ukulele or guitar. After multiple requests for Mara’s memorable version of “The Gingerbread Man,” she performed the song at story time as the grand finale of her week in our classroom. All the children sang along and participated with movement as they sang, “Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!” Our hearts were full of gratitude that our music specialist was able to return in person for this lively week of music.
Music helps develop social skills through collaborative experiences such as The Bing Band. Children worked as a team with instrument planning, turn-taking and leadership opportunities and they traveled throughout the environment or joined together on stage. Music helps build self-confidence as children learn about instruments and some begin to play. Music inspires creativity through building instruments with open-ended materials and using classroom instruments to experiment with sounds and techniques. Music helps children with patience as they wait for their turn in the band or at the piano. Music helps children express themselves through song and sound. Music can build resilience and focus, since learning an instrument requires practice. Most importantly, music is FUN and we saw this demonstrated all year long as the children connected through music.
We celebrated our last few days of the academic year with the children choosing the books for the end-of-the-day group time. Guess what was chosen? Marsupial Sue and Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo! We sang songs and then sang the stories. Children stood up and danced while singing and had a truly joyous time. On our last day of school, Mara returned and joined us, finishing up with “Goodbye Children,” a song that we sing at the end of each day. What a special day and a wonderful year filled with songs!