Music is a source of great joy, inspiration and learning opportunity in the Early Years. Integrated music enables our students to experience music as an integral component of many aspects of our program. We have been learning new songs, engaging in rhythm games and exploring the different sounds instruments can make.
During a class meeting, we wondered together if we could hear sounds better if we made our ears larger.
Recently, we have been inquiring into the sounds the children may encounter as part of daily life as well as reflecting on the many places we experience music. During a group meeting, children shared ideas and music memories.
Aaron– “I heard music at a parade. It had these funny like armies. They had mud over their clothes. They were like funny music”.
Melvin– “At my house we got a CD players with songs from Cars”.
Lola– “When Mommy vacuums, she turns on music to clean my room”.
Izumi– “At the circus! The beat was like stop and on”.
Aaron remembered, “at the other campus there was music. When I went downstairs I could hear the beat of music”.
Charli– “I saw music in the city and there was a guy waving a big flag and doing tricks. He did it around his back”.
We listened carefully and shared our ideas.
It became clear that the children had a strong sense of where and how they experienced music outside of school. Many spoke of performances, movies or soundtracks from beloved movies. Children from each class also spoke about sounds they heard outside.
Owen– “Airplanes flying are making a noise in the airport like music”.
Thomas– “I heard music at a festival in England and there were tents and wooden houses and there was music and other noises”.
The children were asked to consider if all sounds are music. There were many different ideas and as the teacher, I proposed we take a “Sound Walk” to the forest. The children were enthusiastic and we set off to discover the sounds of the outdoors. We discussed what might help us to hear better, including closing our eyes to focus on the sounds and making our ears “bigger” by adding a hand to extend size. In the EY1 Sound Walk, Izumi kindly reminded her friends that “if we all just calm down we’ll hear stuff”.
We set off to the forest to focus on the sounds we hear outdoors.
We sat together, closed our eyes and noticed that we hear more when we don’t see.
We all listened for the sounds of the pond.
Everyone shared his/her ideas about sounds with a friend.
We were astonished to discover how many sounds we heard including funny airplanes, a tractor with a car, cowbells, birds, foxes, a telephone, an airplane, kids, frogs, cars, kling klong sounds, grass, trees, a stream, water, leaves moving, swooshing, rain, dinosaur, bears, foxes and much more. In both groups, there were discussions about real sounds and sounds from our imaginations.
The Sound Walk was a joyful, multi- sensory way to bring our music learning outdoors. As the children focused on forest sounds, they developed listening skills in an environment that naturally cultivates a sense of curiosity and wonder. Many used sophisticated language as they shared their ideas with friends and teachers. Over the next weeks, the children will be making more connections to our Who We Are Unit of Inquiry with a focus on ways we use our bodies to learn about the world.