Teaching music to preschoolers is incredibly rewarding. It can also be challenging. Preschoolers are enthusiastic, energetic learners, which makes them fun to teach, but it also means a lot of squirrely behavior in the classroom.
One strategy to keep your preschool-aged kiddos engaged in your music lesson is to include a lot of variety. With that in mind, we’ve started a list of short, easy preschool music activities you can incorporate.
- Start with a “Hello” song. End with a “Goodbye” song.
- Listen to music and create art that matches the music. Example: listen to Blue Danube and color a river.
- “Emotions” game: listen to a song and ask the children if that song makes them feel happy, sad, or scared. Each child gets to draw an emoji or attach an emoji sticker demonstrating that feeling onto a card. While listening to the song, the children may color and decorate their emotions card.
- Play coffee can drums to practice Kodaly rhythms (ta ta, ti-ti-ti-ti).
- To the tune of “Mulberry Bush”, sing and act out with claves: “This is the way we tap our sticks…”. Add variations like “hammer our sticks” or “scrape our sticks”, and let the children make up their own variations (“row the boat”, “sweep the floor”, etc.)
- Act out songs with guided movement, like “Ten in the Bed” or “If You’re Happy and You Know It”.
- Have each child choose a food to speak in rhythm like “Pepperoni Pizza” or “Strawberry Pop-Tart” and play it on different instruments.
- Use the Music for Little Mozarts book and accompaniment series to play “Racing Car” on the piano, which features glissandos (representing the race) and tap-tap-tap on three black keys (representing a honking car going “beep beep beep”).
- Play an energetic song and allow the children to dance with colorful scarves. Add the “Freeze Game” by pausing the song every so often, which is the cue for the kiddos to freeze in place until the music starts back up again.
- Music solos: each child gets to take a turn “performing” (improvising) on an instrument. Time the performance, allowing 30-60 seconds to jam. When time is up, the performer bows to the audience (the rest of the class), while the audience applauds.
Do you have music activities you’ve used successfully with preschoolers? How about activities that didn’t work? We’d love to hear some of the ideas you would add to the list.
Happy teaching!
