Tag Archive for: sound

12 Reasons to Learn a Musical Instrument – for under-5s

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was only 6, as depicted here, when he started performing music at the imperial court.Have you ever noticed that children are naturally happy when music is playing? They also seem to be instinctively aware that music is fun and interactive. Whether singing along or jigging to the beat, an affinity with music is natural to most little ones. It is simply something to be enjoyed. However, the benefits of music go much deeper than simple enjoyment. So, today we give you the top reasons why every child should take music a step further and learn to play a musical instrument. Doing so will help in their learning and development, teach them new skills and enrich their lives profoundly. The benefits are simply amazing …

1. Learning a musical Instrument Aids Cognitive Development

Learning any new skill will boost cognitive development, in the very young in particular. Learning a musical instrument takes that to a whole new level, though, as it has so many facets. The children are learning a new skill, playing notes while reading music, focusing on details, working out the time signature, notation, phrasing, rhythm, tempo and more, all at the same time! It’s a huge thing to accomplish and a really good way to get brain synapses firing — incredibly good exercise for the developing brain.

2. It Supports the EYFS Curriculum

It's never too early to introduce children to playing music.Learning to play a musical instrument helps with so many aspects of the EYFS, which governs the excellent curriculum for under-fives in England. In fact, it helps towards all seven focus areas contained within the EYFS education and development framework. From helping with reading, mathematics, communication, creativity, understanding the world, personal and social development and much more, music ticks all the EYFS boxes. As such, it’s a powerful tool to help children reach their best potential — in many different areas.

3. Learning Music Enhances Reading Skills

Although printed music can look and be complex to the uninitiated, it can also be very simple when you’re starting out — once someone has explained what the notation actually means. The more simple rules will then be easy to follow, even for the young. Learning to read a new printed music piece will give children’s developing brains a really good workout but, before long, it can be mastered with focus and attention to detail. Importantly, learning to play music and reading a book both develop the left side of the brain. So, it follows that doing one activity will, in turn, help a person with the other. What’s more, that part of the brain is also linked to reasoning and the processing of language.

Did you know that Mozart was only 5 when he composed his first concerto? Having started learning piano at just 3, he was performing at the imperial court by the age of 6.

4. It Boosts Maths Skills

Similarly, printed music contains all the instructions you need for rhythm, the length that notes are held for, the tempo of the music and so on. All of it is based on mathematics, so learning to read and play music can only help children to see and understand maths working — in a really tangible way.

5. It Improves Well-being

Expressing mood through playing music improves well-being and reduces stress.Playing an instrument is a great outlet for emotions. A carefully chosen piece can let a person lose themselves in the beauty of a melody or, at the other end of the scale, vent anger or frustration via through a louder, more energetic piece. This outlet for emotions is really healthy and one that’s hard to beat when you think about it. Expressing your mood in such a positive way can only improve well-being and reduce stress. It can also be virtually meditative when you really get into playing certain types of musical piece.

6. It Allows Self-Expression

Every child is different and allowing them to learn a new skill, like playing a musical instrument, will also allow them to express their own, unique character. Playing an instrument allows them to be creative, to show emotion through their treatment of the music. This is never more true then when they eventually progress to create their own melodies. Music creation is a truly expressive opportunity.

7. It Can Boost Self-Confidence

Mastering a piece of music on a musical instrument can help children improve self-confidence and self-esteem.Mastering a piece of music on a musical instrument will give children a great sense of achievement. In so doing, it’ll boost their confidence and self-esteem amongst both their peers and adults. This alone may give them the courage to keep going and get even better — and to try other new skills.

8. It Helps with Socialising

As soon as children have learned to accomplish a melody on an instrument, they can join forces to perform songs together. Through music clubs, groups, band practise, duetting or potentially even full orchestras, children will make new friends, often outside of their usual circle, and learn new socialising skills. Collaboration and cooperation, teamwork, leadership and support roles all have their place and it’s important for children to be flexible enough to learn how to do each of them. Chatting, debating, brain-storming, learning good manners and encouraging each other are also great social skills to master. All are possible when learning music as part of a wider group.

9. It Improves Coordination

Coordination of hands, fingers and also hand-eye-coordination are all needed when playing a musical instrument.Coordination of arms, hands, fingers and also hand-eye-coordination are all needed when playing a musical instrument. Indeed, playing an instrument requires immense cooperation between the brain and body. Practising the playing of music can only help a child to improve their coordination and the synapses that control it.

10. Music Boosts Listening Skills

Playing and listening to music require a certain level of concentration to hear and analyse the results, particularly in the case of playing. This is great practise and will soon teach children that a close listening focus allows discovery of finer details and a broader message that might otherwise have been missed. This has real-life applications, whether listening to the detail of a lesson, conversation, debate or even TV documentary. Deeper meaning and fine detail are all discoverable once children learn to listen more carefully. Indeed, it’s a great skill to take with them through life, including into business when they’re older.

11. It’s a Window to Different Cultures & History

Music takes almost infinite forms. It has been inspired and affected by so many different countries and cultures over countless years. Such influences can be glimpsed when you listen to music. Some influences are clear to hear while others are more subtle. It’s all there to be discovered when children get involved and listen to or, better still, play it. Music from different cultures is a great introduction to those cultures for children who are learning about them for the first time. Music can even take you off to far away places in your mind’s eye, when you listen to it.

12. It Teaches Important Life Lessons

Learning to play music teaches children important life lessons like practise makes perfect.Learning to play music teaches children important life lessons like practise makes perfect, the benefits of trial and error, the value of collaboration and so on. Each of these can often lead to real, tangible results. Learning that something that looks difficult can be overcome through persistence, patience, focus and effort is incredibly important for children to grasp. It can also be applied to many other areas of their learning.

Bonus Reason — It’s Fun!

Let’s not forget; playing music can be great fun — especially when played with friends, in a band or orchestra. At the minimum it could make for a great hobby and, who knows; it could even lead to a career in music or performance of some kind.

Music at Leaps & Bounds Nursery, Edgbaston

At Leaps & Bounds Day Nursery, we’re well aware of the benefits of music, learning to play an instrument and indeed any kind of sensory experience for under-fives. It all helps with their early learning and development and, in any case, they love it! Whether ‘tinging’ a triangle, shaking maracas, jangling a tambourine or tapping out a rhythm on a make-shift drum, they all have fun when we introduce them to music and rhythm. We’d love it if parents encouraged them to transition to more advanced instruments like recorders, keyboards, ocarinas, guitars etc. If so, it’ll pay huge dividends for them in the future and we’d be happy to encourage them on their musical journey.

Funded Childcare Places in our Edgbaston Nursery & Preschool Near Birmingham

Are you looking for funded childcare places in a nursery or preschool near Edgbaston, Birmingham?

Leaps & Bounds nursery & pre-school is in Edgbaston, Birmingham B16, near Harborne, Ladywood, Bearwood & Smethwick

Leaps & Bounds is a nursery and preschool located in Edgbaston (B16). We support all the Government childcare funding schemes for eligible families and offer paid-for nursery places too. So, if you’re looking for a childcare place for your child in Edgbaston, near Birmingham, Harborne, Ladywood, Bearwood or Smethwick, please get in touch using one of the options below and we’ll be happy to discuss next steps:

Sensory Activities for Babies & Toddlers
Sensory play ideas to help babies and toddlers during early learning and development.In our last post, we examined the importance of sensory perception in under-fives. It was clear how incredibly important such sensory perception is for young children and how their very survival relies on being in touch with their senses. Through these senses, they learn about the world and everything around them. This also trains their bodies and brains to recognise the stimuli and automatically react. It helps them to know what’s good or bad for them, keep themselves safe and be able to live and communicate successfully in the world. With that background in mind, we follow up today with a look at some examples of sensory play activities that can help babies and toddlers during their early learning and development.

SAFETY FIRST: Always supervise your baby or child, so they don’t hurt themselves, touch or ingest anything that could harm them.

Sensory Activities for Babies & Toddlers

Bubbles are a feast for the sensesBubbles

Watching colourful bubbles floating in the air is sure to be a big hit with babies and toddlers alike. You can almost see the sense of wonder in their expressions as they watch them float. To them, bubbles are magical as they hang in the air with their wonderful rainbow colours gently moving around on the surfaces. Babies will be even more delighted when a bubble lands on their skin. They’re a feast for sight as well as touch at the moment the bubble lands and delicately bursts.

Sensory Foil

Sensory foil is a massive hit with babies and makes a variety of sounds that they find fascinating.There is a type of safe sensory foil blanket on the market that you can buy for babies. It’s been a massive hit with babies and makes a variety of different sounds that totally intrigue them. What’s more, it doesn’t have the sharp edges associated with some types of paper. Babies can simply lie and roll around on the foil blanket to enjoy the sounds, or scrunch them with their hands to have more control or to hear louder sounds. It’s a great way for them to hone their hand-eye control, fine motor and listening skills. They’re also great visually, particularly if there are any coloured lights or objects in the room that will reflect on the foil in magical ways. Generally speaking, babies are mesmerised by sensory foil, so give it a try if you haven’t done so.

Parents can introduce babies to a variety of pleasant natural scents by securing things like herbs or lemon peel in muslin or gauze 'pods'.Scents

Parents can introduce babies to a variety of pleasant natural scents by securing things like herbs or lemon peel in muslin or gauze ‘pods’ (see photo example). Simply waft near your baby’s nose to let them enjoy the wonderful smell of lemon, mint leaves, and so on. Be mindful of possible pollen allergies and toxins, though, so do your safety research on any contents before exposing your baby to them.

Black & White/High Contrast Cards & Books

Black & white images will allow young babies to see and recognise shapes more clearly as well as synchronise those images in both eyes together.Did you know that high contrast images are great for young babies? That’s because lower contrast images, especially pastels, may be lost on them as their eyesight isn’t yet fully developed. Also, with relatively poor eyesight and eye coordination when they’re first born, high contrast black and white images will help babies to match the images they perceive in one eye with the same image in the other.

Babies will not recognise the full spectrum of colours that we see as adults until around five months of age. That’s another reason books or cards containing images in high contrast black and white are becoming more popular in recent times for this age group. They allow infants to see and recognise shapes more clearly than lower-contrast alternatives as well as having the aforementioned eye/image coordination benefit. This visual sensory stimulation is also thought to help their brain synapses to develop faster in a kind of beneficial ‘feedback loop’.

Sound Activities

Babies and toddlers will enjoy — and benefit from — sound-making.Babies and toddlers will enjoy — and benefit from — sound-making. This type of activity will allow them to experiment with different ways to make sounds, stimulating auditory senses as well as helping them to develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. It’ll also help them to understand cause and effect more clearly, i.e. to associate sounds they’re making with their causes.

In the most simple approach, babies and toddlers can use something like a building block as a ‘drum’ and a wooden spoon as a ‘drumstick’ and gradually learn to tap away. Babies aren’t born with great coordination, so this is a good first step to give them more control over limbs. Taking it a step further, a responsible adult can make them sound shakers by half-filling clean plastic bottles with dried rice, pasta or similar and then sealing securely. Once safely sealed, babies and toddlers can have fun shaking them to hear the different sounds that can be made through their own actions. Such sensory activities will help them learn in so many ways, both in terms of physical skills and coordination as well as making new brain connections and associations.

Different Materials & Textures

Your baby can also be introduced to different materials and textures like this feather example.Your baby or infant can also be introduced to different materials and textures (suitably supervised for safety, of course, and any choking hazards avoided). Whether it’s a piece of velvet, faux fur or a feather, babies and toddlers will be very intrigued by the look and feel. So, think about introducing them to a variety of materials, both man-made and natural, that perhaps contrast each other so the child can learn how to connect the look of something to the feel of it. These are basic skills, but ones we each had to learn at a very early age.

Food

Once your baby or toddler has been weaned onto solids (e.g. as purée or liquidised foods), they can explore different tastes and food textures. They may be more likely to do so if you give them a spoon, so they can learn to control which food they taste, perhaps from a variety of options that you have prepared for them to try. When they’re suitably dextrous, a variety of finger foods can also be given to them to try. Take precautions, of course, in regard to possible allergens, so choose food types with caution and do your research.

In these ways, various senses will be stimulated in new ways and fine motor skills will improve. Also, exposing them to a variety of different foods and tastes early may give them a broader set of food preferences once they’re older i.e. potentially make them less likely to become fussy eaters.

Nature

Babies and toddlers find nature simply wondrous.Babies and toddlers find nature simply wondrous. There’s something amazing to see, hear, smell, touch and feel everywhere (under close adult supervision, of course). Flowers, with their scents and beautiful colours, will amaze them. Or, have you ever noticed the different smells after it rains, or the warm breeze brush past your face on a sunny day? These will all be new to babies and a feast for the senses. Indeed, nature is the ultimate tool for sensory awakening for babies and toddlers. That’s one of the many reasons that Leaps & Bounds Day Nursery is also a Forest School (learn more about our Edgbaston/Birmingham Forest School here).

Sensory Activities at Leaps & Bounds Nursery, Edgbaston, Birmingham

Leaps & Bounds Day Nursery, Edgbaston, Birmingham B16

Leaps & Bounds Nursery is rated as a Good Provider of childcare by Ofsted.At Leaps & Bounds Day Nursery, we fully understand the importance of sensory play, so build sensory-based activities into the learning and development plan for every child. Each child has access to multi-sensory play equipment and we even have a sensory zone. Stimulation of senses at this early age does so much to help in early years development. It helps integrate a comprehensive view of the world into children’s very beings and reinforces their safe place within it. It helps to build new pathways in the brain and vastly improves cognitive skills. It aids physical development including coordination and motor skills and so much more. We hope some of the sensory discovery ideas above are useful for parents/guardians to use as part of their child’s home learning activities. Next time we’ll look at sensory activities for preschoolers.

Nursery Places in Edgbaston/Birmingham

For more information about a nursery place at Leaps & Bounds Day Nursery, please get in touch. We’re a high quality nursery in Edgbaston, Birmingham, near Harborne, Ladywood, Bearwood and Smethwick.