Winter Newsletter

All winter, we have been busy making music, listening and responding to music, and enriching our music vocabulary skills. I have seen tremendous growth and maturity especially among our Pre-K and Kindergarten students.

I wanted to dedicate a portion of this newsletter to talk about the importance of imaginary play in my music classroom. People who visit my classroom initally might not understand what is going on. The students are in different formations, whether it is seated on the rug in squares, or standing in a circle. Sometimes there are instruments available and others times no. Often we are singing, and the topics are varied. The children might be pretending to be a melting snowman, a tree that is growing blossoms, riding a pony, or shooing a silly turkey away. Why and how is this important to making music?

Despite the growing demands for Pre-K and Kindergarten classes to become more academic in nature, research continues to point out that young children learn through meaningful play experiences. It is essential for children to have whole-body sensory experiences on a daily basis in order to develop strong bodies and minds. In short, learning through play is critical to a child's development. As the music teacher, I do feel it is one of my responsibilities to incorporate this imaginary play throughout many of my lessons especially as the demands for academic rigor increase in the early elementary grades.

In my class, the senses we utilize the most frequently are kinesthetic/tactile, visual, and auditory. Children learn in different ways so providing these options allow all learners to be engaged. Many of our movement activities from an observer's viewpoint might just look like fun, silly games but very often there is a musical skill or objective being taught. By experiencing the musical concept through the senses, I find that students retain the information in future lessons (and of course are having fun in the process).

Below is the link to an article which explores the topic of the importance of play and how it is being diminished in some schools.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/09/01/the-decline-of-play-in-preschoolers-and-the-rise-in-sensory-issues/