Music plays an important role in supporting many areas of healthy child development, offering opportunities for children to develop new skills, navigate feelings and emotions, engage in creative play, and more.
As part of promoting children’s creativity, memory, language skills, and emotional regulation, it’s important that music forms a key part of their early learning curriculum. Here are 5 reasons why music is important in a childcare setting.
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Developing language skills
Music is a fantastic tool for introducing children to new linguistic concepts, allowing them to become familiar with new words and sounds, as well as rhyme and rhythm. As children sing along with their favourite songs, they engage with a broader vocabulary, learning to express themselves and communicate clearly.
Music can aid memory and learning, helping children to develop literacy skills that will help them as they strive to achieve academically. By including educational songs in their curriculum programs, childcare centres can offer an engaging way for children to learn and practise communication skills.
Navigating emotions
Music can support young children to regulate their emotions and express themselves meaningfully. Through listening, singing, and dancing to music, children can engage with their peers, building friendships on the basis of shared musical experiences.
When invited to select their own favourite songs, children can share their interests and feelings with their peers and educators and can begin to exercise decision-making skills. When educators select music for children to engage with, they can choose songs that sooth or engage, depending on the context and children’s needs.
Maintaining routines
As children learn to navigate routines at childcare, music can be a helpful tool, offering children context clues that help them to understand time and structure. By including nap time songs, cleaning songs, mealtime songs, and so on in their routines, childcare centres can support children to recognise transitions from one activity to another and to engage effectively with these changes.
Singing along with routine-based songs can promote children’s sense of inclusion and autonomy, helping them to feel like they are active participants in their own learning and childcare schedule.
Promoting creativity
Through music, children are able to explore art and creativity, learning skills that assist with problem solving, decision making, and social participation. Musical activities invite children to make up their own songs and engage with creative ideas.
By practising creativity through music, children are able to develop skills and techniques for approaching other emotional and academic skills that require a creative outlook.
Learning new skills
Educational songs provide a fun, engaging means of introducing children to a range of academic concepts and ideas, including mathematics, science, technology, literacy, and more. Listening to music can support children to recognise patterns, understand logic and reasoning, and apply focus and concentration in an educational context.
Music and dance can also help children to improve motor skills, coordination, and reasoning abilities.
If you’re looking for a childcare centre with a great musical focus, MyXplor offers location-specific listings to help you. For example, a parent in Alexandria, New South Wales, might visit the MyXplor Alexandria listing to filter and search for local early learning facilities with strong music programs.
