Music

Pick a piece of music to play and while listening to it ask children some simple questions about what they hear e.g; How could you describe this music? What sounds can you hear in this music? How does this music make you feel? What does this music make you think of?

Introduce them to new music – play your favourite song or a family member’s favourite song.

Listen to a new radio station that you don’t normally listen to.

Invite your child to play as quietly or loudly as they can with different sound makers or body percussion, e.g. how loudly can we clap our hands, how quietly can we tap a pan with a spoon?

Playing along is also a great way to discover the pulse of a song – essentially the heartbeat of the music, also referred to as a steady beat. Typically the pulse is what people tap their foot to or dance along to when listening to music.

Using a puppet, invite your child to wake it up by playing loudly and when it goes to sleep to play quietly.

Using a puppet, you can gradually move the puppet up and down and ask your child to play gradually louder and gradually quieter. This also works with an umbrella, gradually opening and closing it.

Try playing games and activities as a way of identifying how a variety of instruments combine to make a piece of music

Watch this performance by the BBC Philharmonic orchestra of I am a Robot. Different instruments in the orchestra have different roles in the music. Listen out for the sounds of families of instruments and the role they have in the music. The different instrument families taking part in I am a Robot can be spotted by the different colour shirts the musicians are wearing.

You can play games to explore this with children, whilst listening you could stand up when you hear a brass sound, parents could represent the brass section whilst the children could, for example, represent the string section and stand when the strings play.

Play a song and ask the children to say what instruments they can hear.

Why not think about: What sounds can we make with our lips? What sounds can we make with our tongues? What sounds can we make with our teeth?

Explore the kitchen – pots and pans are always useful to encourage the exploration of sounds e.g. tapping a pan with a spoon creates a different sound when you tap or ‘swish’ a pan with your hand. Experiment with how many different sounds can be found by playing with kitchen utensils or things you can find outside, e.g. leaves and twigs.

Let the children explore the sounds made by different instruments your family members may play.

Ask a family member to play an instrument in front of the children.

Invite your child to move whilst listening to music and watch how they respond, then follow and copy their ideas.

Try experimenting with a wide range of genres of music and watch how your child responds. Experimenting with music with a range of tempo can be really good fun. Zorba the Greek is a great example to try out as the tempo in the music gradually increases. Listening to music from around the world, from a range of cultures will offer children rich listening experiences.