Following on from last week’s part 3 of the 5 article blog series, this week we consider how regular music practice with the 3-5’s can link to development. We are specifically looking at the guidance set out by Birth to 5 Matters but the development will be relevant to whatever pedagogy you are following.
This is a snapshot of the areas mentioned in Birth To 5 Matters for age range 5 & 6 (3-5 years) which specifically link to music, rhythm, moving, and handling instruments, and the phonological awareness skills that we promote in our School Ready music programme:
Communication & Language
- Joins in with repeated refrains and anticipates key events and phrases in rhymes and stories.
- Uses intonation, rhythm and phrasing to make the meaning clear to others.
Literacy
- Joins in with repeated refrains and anticipates key events and phrases in rhymes and stories.
- Begins to develop phonological and phonemic awareness:
Shows awareness of rhyme and alliteration.
Recognises rhythm in spoken words, songs, poems and rhymes.
Claps or taps the syllables in words during sound play.
Hears and says the initial sound in words.
Continues a rhyming string and identifies alliteration.
Begins to segment the sounds in simple words and blend them together and knows which letters represent some of them.
Starts to link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet.
Maths
- Joins in with simple patterns in sounds, objects, games and stories, dance and movement, predicting what comes next.
Expressive Arts & Design
- Explores and learns how sounds and movements can be changed.
- Continues to explore moving in a range of ways, e.g. mirroring, creating own movement patterns.
- Enjoys joining in with moving, dancing and ring games.
- Sings familiar songs, e.g. pop songs, songs from TV programmes, rhymes, songs from home.
- Taps out simple repeated rhythms.
- Develops an understanding of how to create and use sounds intentionally.
- Begins to build a collection of songs and dances.
- Makes music in a range of ways, e.g. plays with sounds creatively, plays along to the beat of the song they are singing or music they are listening to.
- Expresses and communicates working theories, feelings and understandings using a range of art forms, e.g. movement, dance, drama, music and the visual arts.
- Uses movement and sounds to express experiences, expertise, ideas and feelings.
- Experiments and creates movement in response to music, stories and ideas.
- Sings to self and makes up simple songs.
- Creates sounds, movements, drawings to accompany stories.
- Chooses particular movements, instruments/ sounds, colours and materials for their own imaginative purposes.
- Uses combinations of art forms, e.g. moving and singing, making and dramatic play, drawing and talking, constructing and mapping.
- Responds imaginatively to artworks and objects, e.g. This music sounds likes dinosaurs…
We are so happy that music and musical behaviours are finally being recognised as catalysts for development in all areas of learning.
Watch our video for 3-5’s below with Boogie Mites Trainer, Tasha.
You can access our Let’s Tap A Word song resources – MP3 and lyrics of the song, video of song in action plus notes on how to lead the song – by clicking the button below.
If you practise this song all week with your 3-5’s they will be vocalising and anticipating the moves by the time we publish our final article next week!
We have some online practitioner training for our School Ready (3-5’s) Music Programme starting in October. Click the button below to find out more about our upcoming training. If you express an interest in our Autumn training during August you will receive a 10% discount code to use when booking in September.
Download a PDF to share with the 3-5’s team. This will help your team to understand the benefits of music for the 3-5’s, as stated in the revised Birth to 5 Matters guidance which supports the revised EYFS. Great for continuing professional development (CPD) throughout August in preparation for implementing from September 2021.
