Children get excited about music at an early age, and many of the little ones love to dance and sing. In most daycare centers, singing together is part of everyday life, because music plays a major role in a child’s development. It stimulates the brain, enhances perception and can influence emotions. But not every family makes music. Parents often think they are not musical or lack instruments. In doing so, tablet or smartphone makes it easy for you to accompany your child while singing nursery rhymes.
The easiest way is to use nursery rhyme apps to sing along with your child and move to the music. Figures, animals and other things can also be discovered together in the apps. Well-known songs are told as a story with moving images and the lyrics are faded in for sing-along. In some apps, the recorded singing can be turned off so that only you and your child sing along to the melody.
The free version of the Sing mit mir – Kinderlieder app (for Android and iOS) offers a small selection of well-known German songs. There is a child mode. Adults can make a selection of songs and set a time limit for using the app. Various subscription models give access to all songs (premium content) in the app.
Beautifully done is the paid app Kleiner Fuchs Kinderlieder (3,- to 5,- €, for Android and iOS). In this app for children from 2 to 6 years, you can also record your own songs and make your own music.
There are a number of apps that can replace musical instruments. If you’re just a parent practicing a little, you can accompany your child as they sing, or you can make music together using your tablet or smartphone. This is a special experience that will make the relationship between you and your child even closer. The advantage of such apps is that you can set the pace yourself and your child will experience how you create a song together.
Apps like GarageBand (iOS only; pre-installed on Apple devices) are suitable for this, allowing you to play simple chords and tones on the virtual musical instruments. Different audio tracks can also be recorded in parallel. For Android devices, the Walk Band app (free) is an alternative.
If you can read music, you can use, for example, the app Kinderlieder (for Android and iOS) for support, where you can find the sheet music of many popular children’s songs.
You can read more about the accompaniment of children’s songs here.
With the lovingly designed app Banddings (approx. 3.50 €; for Android and iOS), children aged 3 and older experience a variety of musical adventures: They can form a band themselves and learn about different musical instruments by clicking through various musical and colorful stories.
The choice of musical apps for kids is wide. Portals like ene-mene-mobile.de or the database of the German Youth Institute help you find the right app for your child. When choosing an app, you should make sure that it does not contain advertising and that children cannot easily make in-app purchases. Especially with children’s apps, it pays to choose carefully in advance and invest a few euros in good apps.