Saturday 9 February 2013

Infant Music Time

 
Having been a professional musician music has always been a huge part of my life.  One thing I am trying to do as a mother is to instill that love of music in my children.  With both L and Baby J I started basically from birth.  We listen to all types of music in our house and the children were given instruments from the moment they were able to hold them.
 
As part of our routine  Baby J, Sweetpea and I have our daily music time.  Every morning before lunch I  go over to the instrument basket and say time for music.  The babies bob up and down with excitement and Sweetpea scoots over to the basket.  They both look at the CD player in anticipation.  I play a variety of different music from classical to African marimba.
 
This is our music basket.  It contains a set of symbols, a rainmaker, xylophone, egg shakers and castanets.  I have also recently added a tambourine, jingle bells and a clapper.  This basket is on the other side of the room from their shelves but is still available to them at all times.  Baby J has been using these instruments for a few months now but they were relatively new to Sweetpea.  At first she had no idea how they worked and just went from one to the next.  It didn't take her long however to catch on and now she will pick up the mallet for the xylophone to play it and hold the symbols by the handles to play them.  It is very rare for them now to misuse the instruments. 
Sweetpea also does the cutest thing.  She can't quite consistently make the sound on the castanets but she knows what they sound like so she holds them up and makes the clicking sound with her tongue instead! What a smart little cookie!
We have a wonderful time jamming out to different styles of music and going from one instrument to another, passing each other instruments back and forth to try. 
The other day L had a day off and was excited to participate in music time with us.  She got out her marimba and we all jammed together.   Our favourite CD is one of a local Marimba band who play African marimba music.
L left out her marimba and Sweetpea made a b-line for it.  She knew exactly what to do and even got the mallets facing the right way. 
We also sing and dance.  This is so easy to do and children love it.  You don't need to even buy any instruments.  You can make a rainmaker out of a paper towel roll and some rice, shakers out of bottles and drums from pots and wooden spoons!  I haven't met a child yet that doesn't love to get down and jam to some groovin' music!

2 comments:

Paije said...

Where did you get that Beautiful Marimba?

Montessori Beginnings said...

Hi Paije. My husband actually made that marimba for L's third birthday. She was obsessed with our local marimba band and we had them play at her party! I think he bought the instructions off the internet.

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